Force India targets VJM05 debut in first test

Force India is aiming to launch its 2012 car in time for the first pre-season test next month with the team confident that the VJM05 will be ready for the occasion.

The chassis was homologated after the FIA conducted a successful crash test programme in December giving it ample time for the year ahead. But the Silverstone-based outfit remained coy about its prospects in the upcoming season.

“It is a busy time for us, and there’s a huge unknown as well," technical director Andrew Green said. "We don’t know how well we’ve done over the winter compared to our competitors, and thus there’s a bit of anxiety just waiting to see what everyone else comes up with.”

Work on the new car began in the middle of last season and although it admittedly was not easy due to the new regulations, the project is on schedule.

“We started working on it back in June, and the first wind tunnel tests were around July. We took it out of the tunnel for one week after August just to do an upgrade for VJM04,”Green said.

“It’s been a little bit tougher this year, having to homologate the chassis prior to testing. So there was a little bit of extra planning involved to get that sorted.

“There were a lot of fingers crossed!” he said about the crash test. “You’re hoping everything does what all the analysis says it should have done. It’s always nice when you reel off the tests one-by-one without any dramas at all.”

Force India finished sixth in the constructors’ championship last year warding off the challenge from Sauber and Toro Rosso in the process despite its rivals having an advantage early in the season.

“It was such a close 2011 season, fighting where we were fighting in those last few races,” Green pointed out. “We didn’t know which way it was going to go. We weren’t really anticipating such a strong response from Toro Rosso near the end of the season – they seemed to have a reasonable upgrade around Suzuka time.

“It’s quite unusual for a team to come up with such a huge change so late in the season. So the concentration was right until the last race in Brazil. You could say that, from that point on, it’s been 100% focus on the new car for us.”

Source: f1pulse.com