Force India will launch a B-spec car at the start of the European season following the late debut of the VJM08.
The team’s 2015 car was only able to run for the first time during the final pre-season test in Barcelona following delays due to supplier issues. As a result, the car that was launched was very similar to last year’s design in order to run smoothly and allow the team to maximise its potential early on.
While that approach paid off with a double points finish in Australia as only 11 cars saw the chequered flag, deputy team principal Bob Fernley has told F1i Force India will have a heavily updated car by Monaco.
“It’ll be quite a significant update because what we’re trying to do now is having lost the time over the winter with the aero department reconstruction, we’ll take our time to try and bring in a decent package,” Fernley said. “Then we get the benefits of the Toyota program.
“I think it will be almost a B-spec, yes.”
With Force India having been focused on moving operations from its own 50% scale wind tunnel to Toyota’s 60% scale facility in Cologne, Fernley says it was the team’s goal to be reliable in the early races to try and pick up points.
“It’s always our plan for reliability because there’s no point having the pace and not being able to finish the race and pick up the points. So reliability is second after the safety program and then we’ll go for performance.”
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