After months of hard work at their new factory situated in Bolton, the ever popular Westwood team have finally produced another car ready for their anticipated return to Formula Virtual in 2020. Leading the reveal at the Silverstone Circuit was team principal Lilly herself, joined by Dr Heinrich Wallinger, Porsche Head of Virtual Motorsport. Pulling off the covers were Karl Beckenbauer and Puccio Giodano, joined by a fresh faced Jules Barclay, who will be joining the team in a testing role alongside his final season in the VWRS. As we've come to expect from them, Westwood once again completely ditched previous colour schemes, going for a new design that Lilly has hinted holds a "subtle significance" to her. It features many sponsors, surprisingly for a team that made such a volatile exit from the series and notoriously changed sponsors regularly. Many of these sponsors do seem to have spawned as a direct result from their alliance with Porsche Mathershaw, and are all new to the team. Lilly had this much to say on the car, the return, and FV: "Thankyou all so much for coming! I'm so excited to be here, probably more so than you are! It's been a hard few years for me personally, and the team obviously as well. All my amazing staff losing their jobs, finding new ones with our help, and then leaping at the opportunity to come back to our team was an incredibly emotional moment for me. They've worked incredibly hard, despite us going in relatively blind to the progression of this evolution of Formula Virtual cars. I'm thankful to them all, I'm thankful to Nic Morley for supporting my return and being a good friend in my team's absence. And, importantly, I'm incredibly grateful to have such a strong alliance with Porsche Mathershaw. It's a privilege to work with a team that has incredible experience not only in Virtual Motorsport but all walks of racing, and Porsche is a name that by itself brings such an impact due to its sheer pedigree. And on that note, just before we show you the new WRT-01, we'll have a few words from our esteemed guest, Dr Heinrich Wallinger, Porsche Head of Virtual Motorsport!" Dr Heinrich kept his speech shorter, but just as sweet. "To be present at the car launch for Westwood Racing Technology is a very exciting moment in Porsche's journey into Formula Virtual. It is very important that alongside the works programme that Porsche Customer Racing have strong teams and strong drivers representing them, and with Westwood I think it is clear we have this. Lilly's return to the sport provided the perfect platform for us to select our first customer team, and her team's hard work and dedication is clear to see with their new car. Coupled with the Porsche MRV-20 powertrain, I am sure they will have the finest of return seasons." The covers were pulled back on the car, before it fired up for a brief shakedown around the circuit! Lilly finished with this to say. "Thankyou all again so much for coming! Thankyou to everyone who has worked so hard to get us here, but there's still plenty more work to do! We're looking forward, and we're looking forward to seeing you all at testing in a few days time!"
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