[2] The car was unveiled in London on 7 February 2011, and was driven during the racing season by returning driver Timo Glock and debutant Jérôme d'Ambrosio.

The car did not use KERS; chief designer Nick Wirth commented that the gains offered by the system did not justify the expense of developing it.

[citation needed] Instead, the team concentrated on improving the car's hydraulics and gearbox, both of which had been the frequent source of problems in 2010.

The car was performing poorly due to the condition of the track and speculation rose up that Virgin was not going to be able to race.

[citation needed] However, both Timo Glock and Jérôme d'Ambrosio made it through qualifying, taking the penultimate row on the grid.

Once the race went underway Glock was forced to make a lengthy stop in the garage, due to a mechanical failure.

The stewards awarded him a five-place grid penalty after ignoring yellow flags on Friday, due to which his starting place was twenty-third, while Glock's was twenty-first.

When it came time for the cars to take their positions on the grid Glock's pit crew noticed a mechanical fault and set to correct it.

During the 2011 Spanish Grand Prix both cars had been upgraded and finish nineteenth and twentieth, with both drivers not complaining of any faults.

At the following race, the 2011 European Grand Prix, the Marussia Virgin team complained that diffuser rules appeared to have hampered their chances of being competitive.

Glock finished the race of mixed weather conditions seventeenth and his teammate d'Ambrosio was nineteenth.

[citation needed] With no such weather in the race, he brought the car home in seventeenth, one place above Glock.

Qualifying on the second back row, d'Ambrosio suffered a gearbox failure on lap 1, and although Glock managed one of the team's best results of the year with a fifteenth-place finish, this was last place.