Force India – A new season, new rules, and new partners

Traditionally January is when the F1 season really kicks off as new cars begin to appear and the serious business testing gets underway. The 2009 Ferrari was the first of the latest generation cars to be launched, and others are due to roll out later this month.

The Force India VJM02 will probably be among the last of the new machines to hit the track, but there’s good reason for that. It was only on November 10 that the team confirmed that it will use Mercedes engines and McLaren gearboxes from 2009, a decision that came after the car had been designed around an alternative package. The team has thus had to work flat out since then to optimise the new car in conjunction with its new partners, and inevitably the original build schedule had to be changed.

‘The deal took quite a while to do and therefore the announcement and the opportunity to start work was late, especially considering the package included such fundamental items such as the gearbox, ’ says Force India technical director James Key. ‘We started designing this car in January 2008, as the new rules dictated such a different car from what we are used too. As a result there was a lot to do very quickly! The news was however extremely well received by the team.’

As soon as the deal was finalised Key and his team set to work to see what areas of the original VJM02 design had to be modified in order to integrate it effectively with the new engine and gearbox.

‘The car was pretty much defined at that point. When everything was officially announced it was then a case of having discussions with McLaren on the gearbox and Mercedes on the engine side as we had a new set of numbers to deal with.

‘Then we had to determine how compatible the existing designs were. In some areas it was fairly straightforward. Some areas of the car matched very well with the new packaging requirements we had, while in other areas it was significantly different. Effectively we have had to redesign quite a bit of the car, and starting in November, that’s been quite a major undertaking.’

Fortunately the team has a lot of experience of changing engine suppliers, going all the way back to the Jordan days. Indeed since 1991 there have been transitions from Cosworth to Yamaha, Hart, Peugeot, Mugen, Honda, Cosworth (again!), Toyota and Ferrari before the current link up with Mercedes. Although this time the issue is made more complicated by the move to a gearbox supply, the Force India guys know what’s required when there’s a change of engine supplier, and they are also used to dealing with time constraints.

‘We’ve certainly had late calls in the past! This is quite a late one, but for all the right reasons, in terms of long term stability for the team. We’re very pleased with that, although we also had an excellent relationship with our previous supplier. We’ve also got KERS to adapt to, and we’ve got totally different aerodynamics in 2009 so in any case the design of the car is different to previous years, nothing is carry-over from 2008, we have had excellent support from both McLaren and Mercedes.’

James says that there is no single issue that complicates the process – it’s just a matter of putting all the pieces of the puzzle in the right places.

‘I think it’s just getting everything together. McLaren have been absolutely excellent, they understand that we’ve had a lot of work to do in a short time. They’ve been extremely supportive, very helpful. We’ve had a lot of meetings, and there are day-to-day discussions on the gearbox and all the associated parts such as the cooling.

‘McLaren is a very big organisation, established for some time, Force India is on the smaller side and is up and coming. It’s good to see where the common ground is where fundamental differences lie in our thinking and operation.

‘And equally Mercedes have been extremely accommodating. They have helped us out as much as they possibly can, so the relationships have started out in a very good way.’

It doesn’t hurt that the Mercedes F1 facility is located in Brixworth, just up the road from the team’s Silverstone factory. In fact Force India is geographically a lot closer to its new engine partner than Surrey-based McLaren is.

‘It’s good to have an engine supplier which is just north of Northampton. We speak the same language.’

There’s still much to do, but the VJM02 is scheduled to be on track by the beginning of March.

‘It’s obviously very tight, because of what we’ve had to do. But the plan is to hit the last two official team tests before the season.’