Glock frustrated by Virgin problems

After a difficult pre-season, the new Virgin Racing team continued with its reliability problems in today's first official sessions of the season.

Although the team said new parts had solved the hydraulic issues that hampered its testing, more problems meant both Glock and Lucas di Grassi covered little mileage today.

The German driver admitted the team was in for another long night of work.

"Today hasn't been the start to the weekend that we hoped for," said Glock. "We always knew it was going to be tough but we've had too many technical problems which have prevented me getting track time today.

"We already had two tough nights but we have another one ahead, I'm afraid, to get us to a point where we can feel confident going into the rest of the weekend.

"On the positive side, if we can get on top of the issues we have we'll be in an okay place because with the brief amount of running I have had, I can see that the car isn't bad. I hope we can be ready to get some proper work done tomorrow."

Di Grassi didn't manage to set a time in the opening session, but had a much better afternoon after completing 21 laps.

The Brazilian finished 21st, nearly seven seconds off the pace.

"Although a tough day, we actually had a good session this afternoon and got through a lot of things," di Grassi said. "For me everything is new. I wasn't able to run this morning so the afternoon laps were key to my performance and helping us get started this weekend.

"The mechanics did a great job running the car and everything seems fine so far. Now we just need to work on car performance, which we clearly haven't been able to optimise at the moment."