Virgin hires Pat Symonds

Pat Symonds

Former Renault director of engineering Pat Symonds is to work with Virgin Racing in a consultancy role.

Symonds has been absent from the F1 paddock since the end of 2009 when the Renault 'crashgate' scandal became public and he was given a five-year ban, which was subsequently contested. He then came to an arrangement with the FIA in which he agreed not to work full-time in F1 until the end of the 2012 season.

Symonds has his own consultancy, Neutrino Dynamics, which is retained by one of Virgin Racing's shareholders and the team has confirmed that it is looking forward to working with one of F1's most respected engineering figures.

The Virgin chassis is designed and built by Wirth Research. Symonds worked with Nick Wirth when the latter was technical director at Benetton in the late nineties, as well as with Mark Herd, who performs a key liaison role between the Wirth Research design team and John Booth's race team at the track.