Updated Force India “will look quite different” in Spain

2016 Spanish Grand Prix

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Force India’s updated VJM09 “will look quite different” this weekend according to team co-owner Vijay Mallya.

The team is introducing a significant upgrade for their car in time for Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix.

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

Driver Sergio Perez said the team face “a huge task to understand everything on Friday” when they run the new parts for the first time.

The team endured another frustrating weekend in Russia as both their cars were hit by rivals during the lap one incident. Mallya says he’s hoping for a change in luck in the coming races.

“In Sochi we were the innocent victims of the first lap chaos – as was the case in Bahrain too,” he said.

“It’s frustrating because, even with the benefit of hindsight, it’s hard to see what we could have done differently. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time with both cars, which caused a puncture for Sergio and ended Nico [Hulkenberg’s] race. To see Sergio recover from the back of the pack and score points was a tremendous effort.”

“I hope we’ve used up all of our bad luck already” he added. “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.”

2016 Spanish Grand Prix

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    10 comments on “Updated Force India “will look quite different” in Spain”

    1. Where is Mallya commenting from? Last I heard, the Indian government asked the British government to deport him back so he could stand trial?

      1. He is still in Britain.

    2. Sam Crawford
      9th May 2016, 12:43

      Surprised they haven’t forced him to sell off all his assets to pay off the debts, including the F1 team.

      In any case, they have relied too much on the nostril nose, I don’t think they have made any significant upgrades since introducing it last summer

      1. Why doesn’t anyone seem to realize that it was a company that borrowed money from the banks with securities. Mallya isn’t personally responsible to pay back the loans because the company went under. The banks can confiscate only the pledged assets. His assets that are not pledged cannot be touched.

      2. That would be difficult to do in the case of Force India – as I understand it, Force India is part of the security for a debt involving Diaego, so can’t be sold off to pay off a different debt until the Diaego one is satisfied. Also, it is necessary for people to go through due process before being forced to sell their assets. In India’s case, that means the individual has to go to India to stand trial, be found guilty of something that warrants the sale and (in cases as large as indicated here) be imprisoned while they and their companies’ administrators decide how best to pay off the debt. Hence why Subatra Roy has been in prison for the last couple of years.

    3. I’m gonna miss them nostrils. I hope they still keep them

      1. Yeh, I suspect we’ll see the ugly Williams style nose on it. Just a hunch, but teams seem to favour that horrid design.

        I liked the nostrils, too, as it was at least something different and still looked like the front of an F1 car!

        Saying that, I also had a soft spot for the Caterham nose in 2014, too, and I was in the minority there!

        1. ILuvSoundtracks (@)
          11th May 2016, 15:06

          If they go with the Williams-style nose, I’ll be disappointed. But, what if they got on with that nose, plus the nostrils? That would look…totally wrong for me.

    4. Apart from the livery it’s has been my favourite car, I hope it doesn’t change much. Good news anyway.

    5. On no…… not another stubby Phallus… :-( .

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