Virgin confirm Soucek as reserve

Virgin Racing has confirmed the signing of Andy Soucek to the role of reserve and test driver, finalising the team’s driver line-up for the 2010 season. Alvaro Parente was originally announced as the team’s test and reserve driver.

The 24 year old Spaniard, winner of the 2009 Formula Two championship, will attend Grand Prix with Virgin Racing during its inaugural season, benefiting from being part of the team’s race weekend preparations whilst standing by to deputise for one of the race drivers if required.

Soucek will also provide valuable car development support back at the team’s technical base in Bicester, assisting in the ongoing simulator programme with race drivers Timo Glock and Lucas di Grassi between Grand Prix. Soucek will continue to hone his race craft in a variety of other motor racing series.

Andy Soucek

“I am thrilled to be joining Virgin Racing. This role offers me a great opportunity to prepare myself for the Formula One environment, which is naturally where my longer-term ambitions lie.

"I look forward to learning from Timo and Lucas as well as soaking up as much information as possible from engineering meetings and time on the simulator. I would like to thank John Booth and Nick Wirth in particular for the faith they have shown in me at this stage in my career.

"It is exciting and very motivating to be part of a new structure in such a challenging sport and I hope that my experience can contribute a great deal to the development of the car and team in order to help us progress as quickly as possible.”

John Booth, team principal

“We are delighted to welcome Andy Soucek to Virgin Racing. He had a very good season in Formula Two last year and a positive F1 test with Williams. He is certainly someone we have been keeping a close eye on as we believe he has a great deal of potential.

"We expect him to be a real asset to our development programme with the VR-01 and at the same time he provides the experience we need should he be required to deputise for one of the race drivers at short notice. We are pleased to have finalised our driver line-up and we look forward to having Andy alongside us in Barcelona later this week so he can spend some valuable familiarisation time with the team.”