2013 Belgian Grand Prix Team Preview: Force India

Sahara Force India have had a great start to the 2013 season. They managed to surprise everyone with their performance and their results have been impressive, to say the least.

The VJM06 has so far been the best car from the Force India garage. The car has a formidable engine and it has already shown that with the right set up, it can be very competitive.

The first half of the season saw a few very good races from the team. In some races, the Force India cars were seen leading the pack, albeit for a few laps. They have been quite consistent this season and as a result, they are at fifth in the constructors’ standings with 59 points, ahead of McLaren with nine races to go.

As far as the drivers are concerned, both Paul di Resta and Adrian Sutil have been in top form. Paul is the more consistent of the two with an impressive fourth place finish in Bahrain and regularly finishing in the top ten. Sutil, on the other hand, but lacks the consistency that his team mate has. This is understandable as the German was out of Formula One for a whole last season due to a ban. The sooner he starts showing consistency, the better it is for him and his team.

The Silverstone based outfit has sweet memories of the Spa-Francorchamps as it was here they scored their first pole and their first and only podium finish when Giancharlo Fisichella came home second, only a fraction of a second behind eventual winner Kimi Raikkonen in 2009. With the way Force India have been performing, they should have a good race and both the drivers should finish with points, although from a more optimistic view, one of them may even grab a podium.

The priority of the outfit is to finish mid table and keep competing to grab the ever elusive podium. Breaking into the top league may not be easy for Force India, but the team will definitely like to keep trying just the way they are at the moment.

However, the last race in Hungary brought to light one particular problem which if not solved may prove to be a big hurdle for the team. They seemed to have been hit hard by the change of tyres with Paul di Resta complaining the entire weekend about the tyres not heating up to their optimum temperature in time. The Hungarian Grand Prix was a disappointment for the team, especially for the Scot who was not happy with the new offering from Pirelli.

On the bright side, what happened with Paul in Hungary may have been a one-off incident; most probably because the team did not get enough time to gather sufficient data required for the right set up of the car. Whatever it may be, the team management need to think of a better strategy and a more efficient set up for the car to avoid further setbacks. Hopefully, they might have thought of a solution to the problem or at least a back up plan during the summer break.

Apart from this one problem, there’s no other major technical issues at the moment for the team to worry about. If they manage to solve this one as well, then Force India can have a good outing this weekend. While a win is highly unlikely given the competition, but still, both drivers must aim for a respectable sixth or seventh place finish, though anything better than that would be a bonus.