Iceland ash could leave Virgin driver short on fuel
With FIA clearance, the new British team has been busily designing a new chassis to accommodate a fuel tank big enough to take its cars to the end of races.
The package, at an estimated development cost of 1 million pounds sterling, was due to debut in Barcelona in three weeks.
But F1's hundreds of kilos of freight – including the two race cars driven by Lucas di Grassi and Timo Glock in Shanghai – are currently holed up at Shanghai airport while the six 747 jets are stranded back in Europe.
It means the Virgin cars, including a third spare monocoque, might not be returned to the Yorkshire base in time – or at all before being shipped to Barcelona – so they can be modified for the new chassis package.
It is believed Virgin only has a single VR-01 monocoque already at the factory, so it is possible that either di Grassi or Glock could be forced to contest Spain next month with the too-small fuel tank still fitted.
However, given Virgin's reliability record so far, the drivers are rarely in need of a full tank of fuel. Only in Malaysia did Brazilian rookie di Grassi make it to the checkered flag.
At every other race so far, the 25-year-old has retired, while Glock has not completed a full grand prix distance at all in 2010.