Force India F1 Team Announces Technical Partnerships
Simon Roberts, Vijay Mallya and Martin Whitmarsh
Big changes happening at Force India. Last week Colin Kolles and Mike Gascoyne parted ways with the Silverstone based team. Vijay Mallya took over the job of team principal. The team also ended their engine deal with Ferrari. Today came the expected announcement of new technical parnerships with McLaren and Mercedes:
Force India Formula One Team is pleased to announce a major new partnership that will propel the team forward for the 2009 FIA Formula One World Championship and beyond; a ground-breaking technical partnership with McLaren Applied Technologies (which is a company wholly owned by the McLaren Group) and with Mercedes-Benz HighPerformanceEngines.
In a unique long term deal, the Force India Formula One Team VJM02 cars will be powered by engines designed and built by Mercedes-Benz HighPerformanceEngines, the first time that the legendary manufacturer has supplied another chassis constructor other than McLaren. Additionally, Force India will have access to the McLaren Group’s network of bespoke suppliers that has supported this year’s World Championship victory.
McLaren Applied Technologies will additionally supply the Force India Formula One Team cars with McLaren Racing gearboxes and hydraulic systems and will provide operational support to ensure Force India functions at its highest possible level.
The Force India Formula One Team also plans to fit its cars with a kinetic energy recovery system (KERS) that is currently being developed by Mercedes-Benz HighPerformanceEngines and McLaren Racing (which is also a company wholly owned by the McLaren Group).
Vijay Mallya and Martin Whitmarsh
Force India F1 also plans to expand its computational fluid dynamics capability of its Brackley Aero Centre facility. This will be in cooperation with another technical partner - aerospace company EADS (known mainly for the Airbus aircrafts).
For Sutil’s and Fisichella’s sake let’s hope that the aircraft people realize that the wings on F1 cars have a bit different purpose than those on the commercial aircrafts 
.
Photos: Force India F1/Sutton
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tags: Tags: Ferrari, Force India, Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren, Mercedes, Vijay Mallya
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November 11th, 2008 at 2:59 am
Mallya says he wants to start scoring points next year, and be winning by 2010. That would be an incredible leap up the grid, but if he’s willing to put as much time, effort and money as he says, it wouldn’t be that much of a surprise!
Christines last blog post..10-Nov-08: Force India Announce Partnership with McLaren-Mercedes
November 11th, 2008 at 9:41 am
Mallya also said he would score points in 2008
He clearly has his strategy but I am not sure he can achieve much with his current drivers. But from what was said yesterday McLaren may now start making some recommendations on drivers too so Fisi and Sutil better watch their backs
November 11th, 2008 at 3:47 am
so if they’re expanding brackley, can we assume that the idea of running four wind tunnels didn’t exactly pay off this year?
or are they planning on running four tunnels plus CFD?
November 11th, 2008 at 7:36 am
Well, I’ve learned few about CFD and that’s just a technique which allows to see if you’re following the good path or not, really detailed results come from this kind of study. Anyway, CFD doesn’t ensure that the design is right, and demands time and terrific servers for getting the results in the speed an F1 team needs, in the whole to base the car design in CFD results is still slow and quite expensive.
Ruling a wind tunnel 24/7, is quite more expensive but much more faster results can be provided with their different combinations of devices and analysis of the speeds wind flow streams. I would say, CFD still can’t remove the wind tunnels use, but combining them they provides a good key to mistake less in the car’s design and provide more time study and investigate aerodynamical solutions.
Kotenoks last blog post..F1Wolf added a video:
November 11th, 2008 at 9:53 am
something did pay off this year, they scored zero points but they improved a lot compared to previous season.
I am not really an experf on on the CFD so I have to trust the expert opinion from Kotenok
I however still wonder how big differences on team direction there must be for a team clearly in need of experienced personell to let go or get rid of Mike Gascoyne …
November 11th, 2008 at 7:20 am
It was known that FIF1 was looking for the Mercedes motors and the package from McLaren, but I didn’t expect it that soon maybe.
Good business!
But following the schedules from Mallya, seems that the step forward is well done now. If his purpose is to provide a winning car to his drivers for 2010, the team needs to settle a basis, and that basis is coming from the car which finished in second place in the constructor’s champ this season
I saw lots of changes in Force India since they nearly beginnings. I just saw their cars twice in a circuit, both times with serious upgrades of the last year Spyker, and both times the car seemed to be evolved and gained speed among the cars in the backside (Honda’s were terrible slow compared with them). So this next pre-season I’ll be looking them again for the radical changes in the next VJM02.
Kotenoks last blog post..F1Wolf added a video:
November 11th, 2008 at 9:48 am
It looks like this deal was long in making. I wonder was was tougher though - to get the Mercedes / McLaren deal or to get out te Ferrari one
November 11th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
That we should ask to the team partner Mol, Spyker already was going with Ferrari in 2007 but I do not have any idea how they managed to get a premium engine. It should be a deal for getting a less developed motor than Force India got this actual season. With the motor issues of Ferrari in 2008, I’m sure that the main team decided to provide the latest engines for Toro Rosso and Force India, the biggest millage would help a lot to solve the problems. Isn’t it so? Maybe for Ferrari won’t be a huge problem to lose that data from Force India, but I guess that for McLaren it will be a big strep to double the engine’s data for develop them in a proper way (they were really interested to get into the deal with Prodrive, and could get far with the critics, and now they can).
Meanwhile, I’m just sneaked into CFD analysis with CATIA without big success HAHA Remember my golf ball??? I’m wishing to proof my theory HAHAHA!!! Anyway, I always had interest into aerodynamics. But still teams can’t do much with them if their results aren’t not that accurate as the wind tunnels.
Kotenoks last blog post..F1Wolf added a video:
November 19th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
[...] appeared behind wheel of Force India car in Barcelona. This fuels fresh speculations that following the Force India McLaren technial agreements the seats of Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella may not be as safe as they appeared to be. [...]
December 10th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
[...] Force India - Did not they exactly a month ago announce their multi year partnership with McLaren ?: “In a unique long term deal, the Force India Formula One Team VJM02 cars will be powered [...]