Force India turn their attention to 2009

GIANCARLO FISICHELLA

Home | News | Driver Profile | Official Site | Results in F1

Saturday 19th July 2008

Force India boss Vijay Mallya is to turn his attention towards 2009 after conceding his team has given all they can for this year.

Aside from the introduction of a seamless shift gearbox, hopefully for the next race in Hungary, there will be no further improvements to this year's cars.

Since taking up the reins of the team at the end of last year and investing millions of pounds, Force India have taken steps forward.

However, they have failed to so far achieve any of Mallya's planned prime objectives for this season - reaching the second phase of qualifying and scoring points.

With the demise of Super Aguri they are now the grid's backmarkers, appreciably disappointing for Mallya and why the focus will now turn towards next year.

"As you know I inherited a team that was not very competitive in previous years," said Mallya.

"F1 has become a lot more competitive in 2008. You are fighting for fractions of a second and in this context we have improved.

"We have at least shown to ourselves, and to our fans in India, we are capable of improvement.

"Obviously, the question is, have we improved enough to score any points?

"All I can say is, we have given it all we reasonably could for 2008 and we have only one more element of development to come which is a seamless-shift gearbox which we hope to introduce for Hungary.

"Beyond that I have decided we will now concentrate on the 2009 car.

"Hungary is the last stop for us in terms of development for 2008 and then all the focus is on 2009 when we sure hope to score some points."

Mallya's financial input cannot be questioned, and he will not stop there as he bids to turn around the team's fortunes after years in the doldrums in various other guises.

"Things were run down in terms of budget and resources, but we then bumped it up somewhat for 2008," reviewed Mallya on the state of the team when he arrived.

"We have an increased budget for 2009, and as far as the human resources are concerned, we have added two senior engineers to our design team. We will add as many as we need to.

"We now have three wind tunnels running - one of our own and two that are leased facilities - so we are giving it all we can.

"When you have to compete with teams with significantly higher budgets and vast resources, you have to at least step up to the plate otherwise you won't get anywhere."

Mallya has also confirmed work is due to start on the building of the circuit outside New Delhi that will host the 2010 Indian Grand Prix.

"The news is quite positive," added Mallya.

"I happened to have lunch with the CEO of one of India's biggest banks and he confirmed they had sanctioned a facility to the developer of the Indian track.

"He has actually bought the land and on October 1 construction of a brand new track will begin.

"So for the first time now I feel very confident to be able to say to you there will be a brand new track and we will have our first grand prix in 2010."

Post to del.icio.us