Timo Glock concedes Saturday afternoon in Bahrain will be a "short" outing as the Virgin Racing doesn't expect to make it through Q1.
After just three tests, Virgin are now gearing up for their first-ever Formula One grand prix, which will take place in Bahrain in March 14.
However, the team, who found themselves propping up the timesheets in pre-season testing, are not expecting miracles.
"Being realistic I know that Saturday afternoon will be short for me. I am quite sure. We are realistic and not dreaming about getting into Q2 or Q3," Glock said.
"We will be off the pace, but I don't have any problem with that fact, as I knew when I signed what to expect in the first year. We have to work through it."
Asked how long it might take before Virgin are up in the midfield, Glock told the official F1 website: "Ask me this question after three or four months."
"At the moment it is impossible to judge anything, especially for us as we have no data to go back to. I want to see how far we can go with CFD to make bigger steps forward. Then I guess I will be able to assess the situation much better."
CFD, Computational Fluid Dynamics, is the 'virtual' environment in which Virgin's VR01 was designed as the team opted for that rather than wind tunnel testing.
And although there have been some questions raised about using CFD alone to design a car, Glock insists Virgin are not missing out.
"From the very beginning the numbers have matched the data we've got from the track. We had a little update in Barcelona, and again the numbers were exactly as the CFD predicted. The big package will come for Bahrain, and I guess then we will see how good CFD really is.
"Wind tunnel work is the classic way, but some work is always done with CFD. It is amazing to see that we've been able to put a car on the track that has been entirely created by CFD.
"This is probably the future of designing F1 cars. We will have some problems during the first couple of races, but that goes for every new team, not just us."
