Go Force India

“The team were all frustrated with the [Monaco] result, but there are 12 races and therefore 12 chances left that we now need to concentrate on,” Kolles said.

“Canada, like Monaco, could be a good race for us with all teams developing special aero and mechanical packages that will only be used in this one race.

“With safety car periods and rain also a possibility you could see some surprises too.”

He also warned Sutil not to get carried away with what he achieved in Monaco.

“Adrian’s confidence is now high, and I think he will carry this forward, but we need to focus on this weekend and not let the highs of Monaco cloud what we have to do here,” said Kolles.

Team co-owner Vijay Mallya added that Force India must get itself into a position where it doesn’t have to rely on unusual circumstances, but for the time being should ensure it gets the most from every opportunity that comes its way.

“What we need to do now is to show that we can do this kind of race in every event, not just if the exceptional circumstances allow,” Mallya said.

“I am sure that, given this kind of confidence and motivation that is now surging through the team, other great performances will follow, but in Canada we have to do what we can: stay together, keep it together and focus on getting the best result possible.”
let’s just hope that montreal proves a good outing for our Force India boys as well

For any racing team, the drivers are its face and as Vijay Mallya announced in a glitzy event held in Mumbai on the 12th of January, the drivers for Force India:

1. The former Renault driver, Giancarlo Fisichella who has 12 years of F1 experience and has driven for Minardi, Jordan, Benetton, Sauber and Renault.

2. With him is the up-and-coming German Adrian Sutil who is just in his second year in F1.

Both have pretty good things to boast about in their resumes and that’s what got them the heavily contested (and well paid) driving spot for the Force India F1 team. Fisichella has won 3 races in his career, and is an experienced driver, but he was always overshadowed by Alonso when driving for Renault. Adrian Sutil claimed his first championship point in the Japanese Grand Prix of 2006 driving for the Spyker F1 team. For Fisichella, this is his chance to make a name for himself and be the no.1 driver in the Force India team.

The 28-year-old Vitantonio Liuzzi who has 3 years of experience in F1 and was earlier associated with Red Bull and Toro Ross, is the test and reserve driver. The other Test-Drivers are R Rodriguez, G van der Garde.

Though the team is at the tail end at least at the moment, driving it’s car still is fun. The Ferrari Engines must surely be capable of delivering some serious Horse Power. But it needs to be controlled and used well with a good chasis design and some inspired driving.

Pros like Michael Schumacher, Kimi, Alonso etc make racing an F1 car look easy but easy is the one thing racing an F1 car isn’t; There’s under steer, over steer and then there are the bumps which are the ones that are the toughest to deal with.
The next time you watch an F1 race, note especially the strain each corner puts on their necks, you have to be super fit to take all this. Also, note that this is just a simulation but the drivers still experience the ‘G’ forces sidewards and backwards & forwards, it’s no joke to be a good F1 driver. Still the cars touch 300 kph routinely and what wouldn’t we give to be in the drivers place man?

It is a bit disappointing that the Force India F1 team will not have an Indian driver at the wheel at least not in 2008. One India driver — Karun Chandok, winner of Formula Asia V6 and currently driver for Durango Corse team in the GP2 series according to the Wikipedia page on him is being touted as a probable choice for 2009 but for now, we Indian F1 fans have to be contented with Giancarlo and Adrian driving for our team.

The wild speculation regarding the driver’s choice which included names like Ralf Schumacher and jacques villeneuve, only ended when Dr. Mallya announced the choice of drivers. His words were frosty about the reason for the choice:

“The engineering team needs to benefit from the drivers. We had to choose the driver to fit the purpose. No Indian driver did,”

But maybe he just buckled under the pressure from the engineering guys in the team or the FIA or whatever. The team should have maybe given Narain Karthikeyan a drive if only just for sentimental and patriotic reasons and for the added publicity. One would imagine that if he {Narain} was good enough to drive for Eddie Jordan’s {Former World Champ} team then he was certainly good enough to drive as a second fiddle to the other guy that may have been chosen. Poor old Narain Karthikeyan has disappeared all together from the news lately. Actually not all together, he can be seen driving around with Dhoni to Manali and Jaipur in the Speed Petrol T.V advert but that’s a different matter now isn’t it.

At the end of the day, to be successful in professional racing, each member of a team must contribute — giving his 100% be it the pit mechanics, the guys who sit on the pit wall monitoring stats on everything going on, team boses, anybody though it is a different matter that for the fans, the most important of all are the drivers. The best example perhaps is Michael Schumacher who was the most important driver and face of Ferrari in the recent decade or maybe all of Ferrari’s history. Coming back to Force India, in my view Force India has had the luck to get pretty good drivers. These guys can at least drive around an F1 car lap after lap and favorably move out of the way when the blue flags are waved …

Technorati Tags: force india, drivers, fisichella, sutil, f1

Well, it was a case of what might have been for Vijay Mallya’s Force India this week in the Monaco Grand Prix; if it were not for Kimi crashing in to Adrian Sutil’s car when just 7 minutes remained for the chequered flag to be waved, Sutil would have got himself and his team a stunning 4th place finish. Naturally, Vijay Mallya musn’t have been too amused about this and an interview was posted on the Force India’s official website about the Monaco GP :-

Q: You must have gone through every kind of emotion during the Monaco GP. Looking back, how do you feel about it now?
Vijay Mallya, Force India-Ferrari (Chairman and Managing Director): We were obviously shattered. We were so looking forward to a spectacular result, which was not to be. It has however done two things, and we need to take away the positives. First that Adrian Sutil has a lot of ability and talent, and we’re glad and proud to have him in our team. Some people started questioning my decision to keep him when he didn’t finish a few races at the start of the season, but I think he has more than redeemed himself. Secondly I think our strategy and our whole team came together. The race strategy was right, the set-up was right, and to see a Force India car running fourth in Monaco was a great pleasure while it lasted. We were seven minutes from home. It was unfortunate, but I guess that’s what racing is all about. I can’t say that I’m not feeling sad, because I am, but we’ll get over it, and we’ll take away a lot of positives.

Q: It was already good when he made it to the points in eighth, so when he got up to fourth you must have been ecstatic.
VM: Absolutely! Our strategy was one stop, we filled ourselves up with fuel. I told both drivers to stay out of trouble on lap one. We have normally started very well and had incidents on the first lap, so I said stay right out of trouble, take your time, you’re going to go for a one-stop strategy, bring both cars home. We knew that we were good in the wet, Adrian has demonstrated that before as well, and everything worked to perfection until that fateful moment!

Q: What went through your mind when Adrian had to retire?
VM: We were well clear of Räikkönen until the safety car came out, and then we knew that he was going to attack us, so we warned Adrian on the radio that you have Räikkönen right behind you on your tail. And of course we didn’t want him to get pressured and do anything stupid, because if he wasn’t fourth he would have still finished fifth and that in itself would have been a huge accomplishment. But you know what happened, Kimi just rear ended him. It wasn’t as if it was an overtaking manoeuvre, something drastic must have happened, because you wouldn’t expect a World Champion to run into somebody. It was sad for us, that moment was a very emotional moment.

Q: Were you almost in tears when it happened?
VM: I was, and so were many of us actually! I’ve had quite a lot of SMS messages and phone calls from supporters in India, all of whom are I think highly emotional. But such things happen in racing, that’s what I’ve been telling everyone. F1 wouldn’t be F1 if it wasn’t as unpredictable as it is.

Q: You hosted two big parties on the Indian Empress, and you had a memorable race. Overall was Monaco a great weekend for you personally, for the team and for Kingfisher?
VM: It was a great weekend for us, and what better than to have demonstrated the improvement in this team as we did.

Q: Canada is next, another race that often features rain and safety cars. Do you see it as another good opportunity to score points?
VM: We don’t want to base our earning points on exceptional circumstances. The team’s got to be good and competitive, and that’s what we’re driving for, and everyone’s doing their best to make that happen. I just hope that some of these efforts get rewarded soon.

Well, win or loose, Vijay Mallya will party anyway and you can always count on his parties being fantastic. Despite the poor or perhaps … unfortunate result for Force India Ferrari F1 in Monaco, there was this huge fly Kingfisher party at Monaco and guessing from the pictures, Dr. Mallya and everyone else there were having a blast. Thanx wolf for the great post and the pics.

Well, the qualifiers at Monaco didn’t throw anything new at us as far as Force India is concerned, Fisichella & Sutil qualified 19th & 20th respectively or was it the other way around with Sutil 19th? can’t remember for sure. But raceday sure had something special for Adrian Sutil, the German after 66 laps in the Monaco race was running at 4th with some 7 minutes left in the race, the Force India pit garage was pretty gay, Sutil was driving contentedly for a finish and probably planning how he’ll throw his fist in the air and the celebrations back in the team garage. And well, it just was not to be, the car behind him; the finish Sutil oh so wanted was ruined by the Finnish driver behind him. The Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen lost control at the exit of the tunnel and crashed with Sutil’s Force India car. There was news that Raikkonen did go and apologize to Sutil for spoiling his race but that did not console the German Force India driver.

“It feels like a pain in my heart,” said Sutil, who had started 18th and whose previous best finish this year was 16th place in Turkey. “It is like a dream gone to a nightmare.

“I am just so disappointed, it’s hurting so much,” Sutil told reporters.

“We did a great race, no mistakes and a perfect strategy and everything went well. We did fastest lap times during the race and the performance was great for this car.

Even Vijay Mallya was reportedly very upset with the result, well, lady luck has certainly not been good to Vijay Mallya as far as his sports investments are concerned

Despite all the hard work that the team has been putting in, testing frantically at Silverstone, they still are failing to deliver the performance required. Both of the Force India cars failed to make Q2 again at the Qualifiers today during the Spanish GP weekend. Despite all the ambition, Fisichella & Sutil clinched 19th & 20th positions respectively ahead of just the Super Aguris. This is really heart breaking at the moment for all the Indian Motorsport Fans.

It seems as if Vijay Mallya’s investments in sports aren’t really working at the moment be it in cricket with the Bangalore Challengers or in Formula1 with the patriotically named Force India racing team.