Virgin has announced that it has signed Andy Soucek to the role of reserve and test driver, following Alvaro Parente's failure to secure the necessary funding.

The 24 year old Spaniard, winner of the 2009 FIA Formula 2 Championship, will attend Grands 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.

He 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 races.

"We are delighted to welcome Andy Soucek to Virgin Racing," said John Booth, Team Principal of Virgin Racing. "He had a very good season in Formula 2 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."

"I am thrilled to be joining Virgin Racing," added Soucek. "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."