Sweeping rule changes shouldn’t favour the smaller teams, but Force
India have bucked the trend in 2014, entering the summer break on the
back of the strongest opening to an F1 campaign in their history.
In
a candid and exclusive interview, Force India chief operating officer
Otmar Szafnauer reveals how the Silverstone-based squad have profited as
others have struggled, but also explains why maintaining such high
levels could prove increasingly difficult…
Q: One podium,
fifth in the constructors’ standings, and - until Hungary - points in
every single race. Did you have any idea you would start 2014 this
strongly?
Otmar Szafnauer: I don’t think so. We didn’t know, for
example, who would do the best job at developing the power unit. That
said, we did have a choice and we went with Mercedes because we thought
they would do the best job, even if we didn’t know by how much. But we
started development early, in May, so our expectation was that we would
perform well - we just didn’t know how well.
Q: What was the thinking behind starting so early? Is that why the team’s form tailed off at the end of 2013?
OS:
A little bit. Our form was mainly down to Pirelli changing construction
of the tyres mid-season. Other teams reacted to that and we didn’t, the
reason being that by the time the changes were made, we were well down
the road with developing this year’s car. We had a dilemma: do we stop
what we’re doing for 2014 and react to the new tyres, which would have
taken us a while, or do we just continue? Had we tried to react, it
would have had a bigger impact on this year’s car than what we could
have gained last year. The only thing we could have gained was beating
McLaren to fifth, and that was close anyway. So the potential upside was
one position, but the downside this year would have been huge.
We
started early [with the 2014 car] for a number of reasons. One, we
thought it would be a strategic advantage to do so. Second, our
resources aren’t as great as some of our rivals. Had we started late, we
wouldn’t have been able to do some of the experiments which helped us
decide what direction to take - we just can’t do everything at once like
some other teams. Also, like I said, we were in a pretty good place
with last year’s car - that helped.
Q: What were some of the experiments, or decisions, that you made early on?
OS:
The big thing was cooling the power train. There are a lot of
trade-offs between cooling the power train; between gaining horsepower
and losing aerodynamics. You have to run those trade-offs in CFD
[Computational Fluid Dynamics] and in the windtunnel. If you over-cool
you don’t gain any more power, but you lose aerodynamic efficiency. If
you go the other way, you’re more efficient but you lose power. That is
an iterative process: you learn it through a logical series of
increments, not just up front. If you have a lot of resource, say 30
teraflops of CFD, 150 people in the tunnel and two tunnels at your
disposal, you can do it quicker. But what you want to do is get it
right, because if you get it wrong it has a big impact. Think of it like
a tree: there is low hanging fruit, so you learn a lot at the
beginning, but towards the end you learn less and less. Where do you
want to stop that learning?
Q: So did you know you were in
good shape early on? There is a saying in F1 racing that the decisions
you made 18 months ago shape where you are today…
OS: Absolutely.
We had a good feeling. We knew what Mercedes were doing because we had a
dialogue - we signed a long-term contract with them so they would tell
us - but what you don’t know is what the others are doing. You have to
guess at what is likely to happen to them. But you know what you are
doing…
Q: And how important has the Mercedes power unit been?
Force India were free to choose this year, and you were pretty
instrumental in the final decision…
OS: Yeah. There were a couple
of things: Mercedes in years past have spent a lot of time, effort and
resource in having infrastructure that allows development of the power
train without doing track testing, and our assessment was that others
perhaps hadn’t invested as much into that area. So we knew they had the
capability and infrastructure required to do a new power train without a
lot of track testing. We thought that would give them an advantage. We
also knew Mercedes would do the entire power train themselves - they
wouldn’t be buying bits from outside - and integrating it was key. And a
third thing was that we had very good relationship with them, they
provided good power trains for us in the last four or five years we have
been with them, and they are also based just up the road [from Force
India]. So those are the reasons. The last was secondary, but it played a
part.
Q: But it isn’t all about the power unit, as
demonstrated by the fact you are above McLaren in the constructors’
fight. How difficult is it to fight with teams with greater resources?
How do you manage it?
OS: Yes, it’s not just that. We’re ahead of
McLaren, they have more resources, a better tunnel, better simulator -
you can go on. Williams are the same. The only way we compete is to take
those disadvantages, understand what we do have and the limits of what
we have, and make it up in the fact we pull together more, we have
better people or people who understand the resources we have and can
gain the most out of them. That’s the only way we can compete really. We
have decent drivers: comparing them as a combination to the other
Mercedes teams, apart from maybe Lewis (Hamilton) and Nico (Rosberg)
we’re there, if not a little bit higher, than the others and that helps
too.
Q: How have your rated your all-new driver line-up this year?
OS:
Brilliant. Just brilliant. We have a very good relationship, a
long-standing one, with Nico (Hulkenberg). He is very intelligent, has
good feedback and helps us develop the car. Sergio (Perez) has fitted in
very well in his first year. He is a very quick racing driver,
especially in the races. He finished on the podium and Nico has scored
in every race, so they’ve both done a very good job.
Q: Have you been surprised with how well Perez has got on compared to Hulkenberg?
OS:
Well, if you look at his past history, he did well at Sauber before
McLaren took him, and he was against Kobayashi who is no slouch. And in
the second half of 2013, he kind of took it to Button, especially in the
races. But he also out-qualified Button, 10-9 over the year - and
Sergio is typically stronger in the races than he is in qualifying. Nico
has been consistent and outscored Sergio, but Sergio has been unlucky,
like contact with Massa and when he couldn’t get out of the garage to
start in Malaysia. Am I surprised at his form? Not really. He is
focused, wants to do well and is a good driver. I think we’ve got a good
combination, and they’re both brilliant at driving the team on.
Q:
You have tended to be more competitive in races than in qualifying this
year. Is that a deliberate ploy, or do you need to improve on
Saturdays?
OS: I don’t think it is a priority of strategy, but if
we have choices to make between gaining a few places on Saturday or
being set up for Sunday, we will always choose the latter - at least in
places where you can overtake. At circuits where you can’t, qualifying
becomes more important and we will change the balance. But there is no
sense in looking good on Saturday and going backwards Sunday; we don’t
look at it that way. One nice thing about this team is that it is made
up of a bunch of racers, people who want to do well on Sunday, and
because of that we take those decisions to try and maximise everything
around being as high as possible on Sunday.
Q: We’ve also seen just how close the midfield battles can be. How do you plan to keep Force India in the fight?
OS:
From a car perspective, Silverstone was probably our first big upgrade
package. We had some of it in Austria and all of it in Silverstone. That
was a big upgrade - new rear wing, new front wing, new floor, new
sidepods. That was the first big step for us. We have another couple of
big increments planned - you have to otherwise you slip back. We will
typically bring three or four in a year, so on average that will be
every five races. But Austria was the first big one, and that was the
eighth race - so expect three or four big upgrades and a few smaller
ones along the way in the autumn.
Q: How does the relative stability of the 2015 regulations affect your plans?
OS:
It is stable - apart from the front nose area - and when you have that,
you try and bring the developments to the car as soon as possible,
because they will also apply to next year’s car. There is no sense
trying to trade off one year for the other - just bring them.
Q: Just as 2014 was an opportunity for you, is the stability of 2015 therefore likely to hurt you?
OS:
Maybe. It could be a bit more difficult - or we have to be a bit
smarter. With the infrastructure we have, once you get to a point of
diminishing returns I think other teams are in better shape because the
fidelity of our tools isn’t quite as high as the fidelity of theirs.
Teams with more money can do more experiments - that’s why we started
early this year. It’s no secret that Mercedes have done a good job [this
year] - they'll improve, but others will improve marginally more too,
so it will all come closer together.
Q: Do you think the Mercedes power unit layout will be copied then?
OS:
Yes. I don’t understand the strategic direction of the other power
units, but I’m sure that in Formula One everyone looks at what everyone
else is doing, and if they believe there is something they’ve missed,
which they now know… that’s just how our industry works.
Q: Is it all about the power unit this year?
OS:
I don’t think so. To win you have to get it all right. Look at Mercedes
- I believe that their car would still be good enough to win even with
Renault or Ferrari power. They have a good aero package, good mechanical
package, they understand the tyres, have good drivers and strategy -
they're going to win. Remove the powertrain and stick another one in and
they’ll still be competitive. Is it more of an engine formula this
year? Maybe a bit more than in the past when the engines were all
frozen. But is it a complete engine formula? No way. We have the same
engine as Mercedes, so do Williams and McLaren - and they’re not
winning.
Q: What’s your take on the new era of Formula One racing then, looking at it on the basis of the first half of the season?
OS:
You have to ask yourself how important is it to the fans that F1
technology leads road car technology? That’s hard for me to answer. In
years past F1 has always led car technology, because what happened in F1
was always naturally ahead of road cars - road cars were always looking
for more power, more power density. But now with road cars having
enough power and fuel prices soaring, people are looking for more
efficiency - they want to bring the costs down. Should F1 lead that? We
now have hybrid power, reducing fuel consumption by around 33 percent.
That is a huge reduction within the space of a year, and the cars are
still as fast and powerful as they have been in the past. Is that right
for F1, or should we have stuck with what we had? Or should F1, as the
highest level of motorsport, be about entertainment and good racing? I
would say if you can do both, why not? That’s what we’ve seen this year -
that you can have great racing, like in Bahrain, or Canada, or Austria,
and also have the technology that leads road cars. I was sceptical at
first, but we’ve seen this year that you can do both.
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