Force India 'will look quite different' in Barcelona

Vijay Mallya says the Force India VJM09 "will look quite different" as a result of an upgrade being introduced at the Spanish Grand Prix.

Force India's chief operating officer Otmar Szafnauer told F1i after the Russian Grand Prix the upgrade is similar in size to last year's B-spec car, with a number of new parts to be fitted. Team principal Mallya has confirmed the package will be used on both cars and represents a significant update.

“It’s on schedule to be fitted to both cars ahead of Friday practice," Mallya said. "It’s pretty comprehensive and the car will look quite different.”

With Force India yet to score with both drivers this season, Mallya is hopeful the team will soon see better returns after showing flashes of impressive pace.

“I hope we’ve used up all of our bad luck already! We’ve yet to see how we perform in a clean, trouble-free race without safety cars, red flags or accidents.

"Despite not realising our potential in Sochi, we took encouragement from our qualifying and race pace: the car is improving and we’ve got a good base on which to build. There are 17 races to go and I’m confident the best is yet to come. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.