What’s in a name?
For starters, why Force India? There’s no Force Italy (they call that Ferrari), no Force Germany, no Force Brazil. The obvious answer is because nationalism sells like nothing else in New India — a country that knows no fear.
Unfortunately, it’s also a country that doesn’t react to failure very kindly; a country that will find it very hard to be patriotic when the team is finishing in the bottom four.
Worse, what if the cars fail to finish? What if they don’t get off the grid? What happens if the irresistible Force turns out to be an immovable object?
Vijay Mallya’s answer is accompanied by a rather emphatic shake of the head. “There are only 11 teams in Formula One. Being here in itself is a privilege,” he says. “This is a team that was finishing last the previous season. We have already made a lot of improvements since then. As the practice timings prove beyond doubt, we are positively a midfield team now.”
Hot potato
For Mallya and Force India, taking one step forward will, to a large extent, involve taking three steps back.
Founded by Eddie Jordan in 1991, Jordan F1 took on the reputation of its owner. Apart from being fairly competitive — they finished 18 times on the podium, including four Grand Prix wins — they were a team marked by a flamboyance that has gone missing from the sport over the last few years.
In 2006 though, Jordan sold the team to Midland F1 who, after one season, sold it to Spyker. Spyker couldn’t live with finishing at the bottom of the grid either, and were only too happy to let go.
The big change this season is the budget — it’s supposed to have gone up from around $75m to about $120m. The team now has three wind tunnel facilities — one they own, one they rent and one is outsourced.
The results seem to be showing. While you never know what kind of fuel loads go into the cars, the modestly named VJM01s have made up about two seconds since last season. They are still around two seconds off the pace, but that pace is being set by the Ferraris and the McLarens who, as Mallya himself admits, are on another planet.
“There’s no point in trying to compete with them. But it does look like we will be competing more with the midfield teams.
“When we bought the team, there was a lot of scepticism in the motorsport community. It already looks like we’ll be fighting with the middle of the pack. And as far as long-term targets go, I’ve said before that I’m looking forward to a podium finish at Delhi in 2010.”
... contd.
