Audi gave Virgin three of its private test days
ByAutoSport
Published 15/10/2018 at 13:49 GMT+1
The Audi Formula E manufacturer team gave three days of its private testing allocation to its new customer squad Virgin Racing ahead of season five, according to Sam Bird.
Eurosport
Image credit: TNT Sports
Virgin split with DS Automobiles at the end of the 2017/18 championship after three seasons and will use Audi e-tron FE05-powered cars from the 2018/19 campaign.
Manufacturer-backed teams and works squads are allowed 15 days of private testing per season while customer outifts receive only the three days of official pre-season testing at Valencia.
But Bird explained that Audi "very thankfully gave us a few days of their allocation".
"I don't think [that] happened with Techeetah and Renault [a 2017/18 customer arrangement] previously," Bird told Autosport.
"So we have driven the car [already], we've got three days in Valencia, so we will have had six days of testing before we get to Riyadh [for the first race].
"And if the package is as good as I hope it will be then six days will be enough to at least score decent points on our debut."
Bird also is confident that being a customer team will not be a disadvantage for Virgin, as he reckons Audi is "ahead of the game".
"I believe that [Audi motorsport boss] Dieter Gass wants all four Audi cars to be at the front," said Bird.
"And I believe he will be giving us the components and software and hardware to be able to do that.
"Audi, throughout Formula E so far, are proving themselves to be an extremely competent outfit.
"It showed last year when they really got their teeth into the project as a manufacturer - they were ahead of the game.
"Once they got rid of their gremlins in Lucas [di Grassi's] and Daniel [Abt's] cars they were so fast and so efficient, so it's exciting to know that we've got the same equipment as those guys underneath us."
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