Paul Jeffrey
Premium
Right at the very last minute before testing begins, welcome to the world the new Force India Mercedes VJM11... the last of the new 2018 F1 cars to be revealed...
On a cold and wintery day at Barcelona the Force India Formula One team revealed the shocking pink new VJM11 to the world, a car that many expect could carry the Silverstone based team back to the podium in 2018.
Driven once again by exciting pairing Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez, the Mercedes backed privateer outfit have produced more of an evolution than revolution over the successful 2017 VJM10, a solid baseline in which the team hope will remain competitive throughout the year as they target an aggressive development cycle, with "significant changes" expected early in the new season.
Speaking in a Q&A at the new car launch this morning, Force India Technical Director Andy Green was obviously pleased with the way pre season has gone for his small team:
"I’m obviously glad to see the VJM11 break cover. The production process has taken many months and I believe we have made very good progress over the winter: it took hard work by the whole team but now we’re here and we are all looking forward to finally seeing the car run.
“We jumped many hurdles on the way, starting with the homologation test. The introduction of the halo meant it was quite a different process from previous years; it was a significant challenge but the team rose to it admirably. We passed the very demanding test at the first time of asking and had a fully-homologated chassis ready at the beginning of the new year, which was a fantastic achievement. I believe we were one of the first teams to do so.
“Looking at the VJM11, the DNA of the car is still very much that of last year’s car. We took the decision, quite a while ago, that the launch specification of the 2018 car would be based around our understanding of the 2017 car, but with all new structures required by the regulations in place. It is a starting point, a good reference from which to introduce changes quite quickly; it gives our aerodynamics department more time to develop a car for the first race in Australia, rather than having to release parts early for testing.”
“We jumped many hurdles on the way, starting with the homologation test. The introduction of the halo meant it was quite a different process from previous years; it was a significant challenge but the team rose to it admirably. We passed the very demanding test at the first time of asking and had a fully-homologated chassis ready at the beginning of the new year, which was a fantastic achievement. I believe we were one of the first teams to do so.
“Looking at the VJM11, the DNA of the car is still very much that of last year’s car. We took the decision, quite a while ago, that the launch specification of the 2018 car would be based around our understanding of the 2017 car, but with all new structures required by the regulations in place. It is a starting point, a good reference from which to introduce changes quite quickly; it gives our aerodynamics department more time to develop a car for the first race in Australia, rather than having to release parts early for testing.”
Force India begin testing alongside its 2018 rivals at Barcelona over the next two weeks prior to the season start at Melbourne in March.
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