Force India F1 have revealed their new 2009 competitor. Codenamed the VJM 02 that stand for Vijay Mallya, the team’s owner, their car was given a shake-down at a private test session at Silverstone on February 25th.
Sharing the Mercedes Benz V-8 engine along with the entire running gear- the transmission and the KERS Kinetic Energy Recovery System, the car has a lot of strengths considering the fact that Mclaren had a very competitive car last season and won the driver’s crown.
The car features a significantly different livery, with the green, white and orange Indian national colours taking precedence. It was shaken down in a private test at Silverstone earlier this week. After a frustrating 2008 season in which they failed to score a point, Force India hope that their collaboration with McLaren-Mercedes will result in huge progress over the next two years.
Vijay Mallya who apart from being the owner and chaiman has also taken up the post of Team Principal, has stated that the team will be targeting regular points scoring finishes for the 2009 season that kicks off at the Australian GPon March 29. Since the team had not got any substantial testing under their belt, they would be looking forward to utilisin the last two testing sessions as testing is completely banned during the season. Force India would like to make maximum use of whatever is available.
Germany’s Adrian Sutil and Italy’s Giancarlo Fisichella would be continuing their drive this season too with Italy’s Vitantonio Luizzi the team’s reserve and test driver. With the departure of Mike Gascoyne, Mark Smith and James Key are in charge of design for the team. McLaren’s Simon Roberts is the team’s new CEO.
Source : Autocar India
[...] Mallya’s Force India did not have the brightest of starts in Formula 1. I could even term it dreadful, since they failed [...]