Virgin F1 Vs Lotus F1, a new sort of battle!

Who · January 25, 2010

It looks like Virgin and Lotus will be racing the 2010 season out of more than just points, they are racing for pride!

Virgin Racing have revealed their 2010 drive line-up: ex-Toyota driver Timo Glock and GP2 racer Brazilian Lucas di Grassi.
But a more interesting duel is revealing itself, between Virgin Racing boss Richard Branson and the Lotus F1 team.

The latter’s boss, AirAsia owner Tony Fernades, said the other week that his first objective in F1 is to beat Branson’s outfit. “Otherwise I will retire and kill myself,” he added.

Branson has responded, saying that he likes Fernades a lot and hopes the Malaysian won’t have to kill himself.

Branson then suggested a slightly less drastic challenge.

“He has an airline, we have an airline, and if we beat him he can come and work on our airline as a Virgin stewardess,” he told Reuters.

“I suspect that he might ask us to reciprocate. I’ll have to check how fetching his stewardess outfits are, but I’d be game to do it while totally confident of winning.”

So if nothing else, Virgin and Lotus are at least in with a good chance of winning something in 2010, that being the humiliation of a rival team boss.

Will Force India team principal Vijay Mallya join in with his Kingfisher airlines?

UPDATE: Tony Fernades has accepted Branson’s challenge, which has added an interesting little twist to the 2010 season!