Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsForce India

Fernley admits to ‘damage limitation’ for Force India

Force India deputy team principal Bob Fernley admits the team is facing “damage limitation” in the next two races of the season.

With Force India failing to launch its 2015 car before the final test in Barcelona, the team opted for a conservative approach and will introduce a B-spec car later in the year. As a result, Fernley told F1i the target for China and Bahrain will be to stay in touch with the likes of Lotus, Sauber and Toro Rosso in the standings.

“I don’t think there’s a great deal [to change] for the time being, we have just got to play this damage limitation game,” Fernley said. “You’ve got to look at it across the board, and we’re really competing with four teams for that sort of sixth or possible fifth place depending on where it goes.

“As long as each team keeps taking points off each other and we can keep creeping in, then if we can get to the point where our B-spec comes in and it delivers what we’re hoping it will deliver then hopefully we can have a strong second half. The key really for us is to try and minimise how much we lose across the board to the other teams.

“Lotus didn’t score [in Malaysia], Sauber didn’t score, Toro Rosso did very well and scored nicely, but nobody is breaking away.”

Asked what he hopes Force India will be able to achieve with its updated car, Fernley simply targets reaching the level of the teams ahead.

“I’m hoping it puts us back in the mix again as the first point. It’s not going to be that dramatic that it takes us way ahead of everything else but if we can get back in to the mix then we can be racing with each other. At the moment we’re not racing with them.”

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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.