News Force India’s VJM06 unveiled at Silverstone

Force India has unveiled it's all-new VJM06 for the championship, which the team has high expectations for over the course of the season.

Though mostly an evolutionary improvement over the VJM05 chassis it replaces, the team's key officials who were at the launch say they still spent a lot of time adjusting the new car.

Otmar Szafnauer, Force India's chief operating officer, states that, because development of the new car began in the latter half of last year, the VJM06 offers a "great platform to work from" next year, especially when put into context of Nico Hulkenberg's exceptional performance at Sao Paulo last year.

The limited scope of exploitation of the regulations has also, in the words of the team's technical director Andy Green, forced Force India to take a more "aggressive approach" to this year's car, leaving no stone unturned in the pursuit for improvement.

Green stated that, due to the stability of the rules, he and his team "couldn't hold back" when engineering the car, and had to re-design everything in order to eke out as much performance as was humanly possible.

However, despite these claims, there don't appear at this stage to be the plethora of modifications that the team's suggested, at least from an aerodynamic perspective: bar the "tidying up" that every team has done, the biggest change appears to the engineering behind the rear suspension components, which should in theory improve airflow around that section of the car.

There also weren't any suggestions of who Paul di Resta – who was present at the launch of the VJM06 – will be partnered with next year, with the team stating that they didn't want the media and their audiences to "confuse the two stories".

First impressions of the VJM06

As with every car that's been revealed so far, the VJM06 isn't a massive step-forward from the VJM05. Given the stability of the rules, it'd be naive to expect that, though we are impressed by the claims of everything being "redesigned" for the final year of these sets of rules being inforced in Formula One.

Also, given Force India claims it was developing thenew  car during the same period it's predecessor was proving to be quite an potent mid-field force to be reckoned with, one can only imagine what the VJM06 is capable of.

Especially when Paul di Resta has still been retained. Yes, he was outshone by his German ex-team mate on quite a few occasions, but he is still a pretty talented driver, who'll undoubtedly shine if the car is up to the challenge.

Of course, the prospects of the VJM06 will only be known in full at the very earliest once its rivals from Sauber, Williams and Toro Rosso are revealed, as the trio always have the potential to bring down Force India's chances.

At this moment in time, though, the VJM06 does look like a capable, all-round package that, dependent on what the rest of the field comes up with, has all the right ingredients to build on the success from the latter half of the 2012 season.

Log in with:

Please login to comment

0 Comments

Inline Feedbacks

View all comments