Booth will fight to keep Virgin in town

Booth has admitted that the Marussia-Virgin outfit, borne out of Booth’s highly successful Manor Motorsport operation, have outgrown their current base at Dinnington, just a year after the new Grand Prix centre was opened.

Strong hints were given by Chief Executive Andy Webb that Virgin’s new tri-centre operation may have to be consolidated under one roof, with the Dinnington hub set to run alongside their newly-acquired technical centre in Banbury and also the McLaren testing base in Surrey. Virgin this week struck a deal to buy the WRT operation in Banbury, following a parting of the ways with technical boffin Nick Wirth, and have also formed an exciting partnership with top guns McLaren Applied Technologies, meaning they can utilise the state-of-the-art facilities, such as test rigs and driver-in-the-loop simulator, supply chain experience and conputer design techniques including race strategy tools.

It spells good news for Virgin, as the look to get on the Formula One pace, but the developments will bring logistical problems.

But Booth says he’ll fight tooth and nail to keep Virgin in South Yorkshire.

“This base here has worked fantastically well for us,” he said. "But It isn’t big enough for us here now and we will have to move. We’ve outgrown it.

" My heart will always be here and hopefully my head will as well.”