F1: Force India targeting more success with new challenger

Force India is targeting continued improvement after launching its 2010 car today.

A pole position and podium at Spa-Francorchamps were high points of an encouraging 2009 season and chairman and team principal Vijay Mallya is looking for more of the same this year.

“Our goal is to continue on the same path of performance improvement that we had at the end of 2009,' said Mallya.

“I don't think I am being over-proud when I say 2009 was an exceptional year for us. The bare statistics say it all: one podium, one pole position, one fastest lap, a further five top 10 starts and 13 points. We've learnt from our experiences and we've come out a better team: resilient, resourceful and now resurgent.

“I hope 2010 will see this great progress carrying forward. We've got one podium so far but I would hope that, this time next year, I'm talking about more points and more podiums. I'm confident we can get this, why not aim high?”

Tonio Luizzi and Adrian Sutil have both been retained as race drivers for 2010, with DTM star Paul di Resta signed up as reserve/test driver, and that stability is continued in the new VJM03, which is an evolution of the successful VJM02.

“The VJM03 is definitely an evolution of the VJM02 in terms of the design philosophies we have developed at Force India over the last year,” said design director Mark Smith. “We are very happy with the direction, therefore we have opted to evolve the car rather than significantly revise.

“Obviously one of the major aspects we have had to contend with are regulation changes which have had a considerable impact on some aspects of the design of the car. The removal of refuelling from races increases the amount of fuel needed to be stored in the cars - almost twice the amount we ran in 2009. There is a compromise now: either make the car much longer or wider, or, as we have done, a combination of both. This of course has influenced the mechanical design solutions and also the aerodynamics, specifically with respects to the diffuser and bodywork.

“Even with the ban of double diffusers for 2011, we recognise that we still have to push as much as we possibly can in this area in 2010 as we have targets to meet and the double diffuser is a key development aspect of the car.”

The new car will make its official testing debut on 10 February at Jerez with Luizzi driving for the first two days and Sutil taking over for the third.

Click herefor more images of the new VJM03.

Keep up-to-date with the latest F1 news by watching Inside GP on Motors TV (Sky Channel 413, Virgin Media 545).


Andy Wilkinson