To read my review of Honda's 2008 season click here.
Notes
Chassis – VJM01
Engine – Ferrari
Team Owner – Vijay Mallya
Team Principal – Colin Kolles
Technical Director – Mike Gascoyne/James Key
F1 debut – Australia 2008
F1 points – 0
Championships won – 0
Season highlight: Adrian Sutil fighting his way to fourth place in the Monaco GP.
Season lowlight: Adrian Sutil being taken out by Kimi Raikkonen whilst in fourth place in the Monaco GP.
Drivers
Giancarlo Fisichella
Age – 32
Nationality – Italian
F1 debut – Australia 1996
Races Started - 212
Wins - 3
Pole Positions – 3
Fastest Laps - 2
Points – 267
Adrian Sutil
Age – 25
Nationality – German
F1 debut – Australia 2007
Races Started - 35
Wins - 0
Pole Positions – 0
Fastest Laps - 0
Points – 1
Force India may have been at the back of the grid for the majority of the season, but they deserve more respect and rewards than they earned this season.
The year started with another name change. This was now the third name change since Jordan got taken over in 2005. However the new charismatic owner, Vijay Mallya, seems to be a much more committed team owner than his two predecessors. He has invested a lot of money into the team, and the whole of India are now passionate supporters.
Force India, as the team was now called, started the season with a much improved budget. The facilities had also been improved as a new aero lab was built abroad, and with high profile technical director Mike Gascoyne, and James Key looking over the development of the car, the condition of the team was the most positive for years.
The team continued to develop last season’s upgraded Spyker for use in 2008. A whole range of updates were made available for the car including: a new bargeboard, side pods, diffuser and a new floor to name just a few.
In testing it looked like the team had taken a big step forward. Both drivers seemed very happy with the car. It’s aero efficiency and mechanical grip was much improved over the Spyker in 2007. Over the winter the team gained around 1.3 seconds in performance over their rivals. This was a bigger gain than any other team on the grid made.
In the first race in Australia Giancarlo Fisichella qualified in 16th, meaning that he had qualified ahead of a Renault and a Toro Rosso (along with the Aguris). In the first qualifying segment he was only 1.5 seconds slower than Heikki Kovalainen, who topped that part of qualifying. Compare this to the same point last season and Adrian Sutil was 2.6 seconds away from the leader’s pace. That shows the improvement that had been made in a short space of time.
In the first segment of qualifying in Malaysia, Giancarlo Fisichella was only 1.0 second of the leader’s pace. This was compared to 3.3 seconds off the pace in 2007 at Malaysia. In the race Fisichella was also very competitive, and for the most of the GP he was battling in the midfield. His fastest lap of the race was a very respectable 1.5 seconds slower than Nick Heidfeld’s quickest lap.
2 comments Last one added 7 months ago — Leave a Comment
Billy Sexton 7 months ago
Force India are certainly on the up and I reckon in a couple of years they'll be like the new Toro Rosso, scoring consistent points and maybe even a podium or win. They have great talent in Adrian Sutil and all they need now is someone like Paul Di Resta or Karun Chandok to partner the German. The support from McLaren will be a huge boost and I bet on them to score some decent points in 09.
Great article along with the Honda review, is there going to be one for every team?
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CJ J 7 months ago
Good article.
Yes Force India did a great job compared to Honda, who are financially miles ahead and yet are struggling........
With Honda concentrating fully on 2009 car, Force had to come up with something better, and a deal with McLaren is the best that could happen....
It will be an interesting season next year to see who is on the right track.
I hope Force is fighting in the midfield next year. Good luck to Honda too.
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