Force India will add more modifications to their car for this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, but have put off introducing KERS until later in the season, choosing instead to focus on the VJM02’s aerodynamics.
The team were pleasantly surprised by the performance gains obtained from a new diffuser and aero upgrades at the last round in Bahrain and further revisions for Barcelona could boost their competitiveness still further.
“We'll have yet more upgrades coming through based on the information we gained in Bahrain,” confirmed team principal Vijay Mallya. “We'll be running a driver-adjustable front wing flap and a further modification for the front wing. This is just part of our ongoing development cycle and there will be further upgrades at most of the forthcoming races.”
The Spanish Grand Prix had also been pencilled in as the race where Force India would add KERS to their armoury. However, after witnessing the mixed fortunes experienced by those teams running the system, Mallya says Force India will concentrate their efforts elsewhere for now.
“We have decided to put the emphasis on aero development where we feel the greater gains can be found,” he said. “As we've seen many other teams are not running KERS so we do not feel we are at a disadvantage. We still plan to use it later in the season, but this will be reviewed after each race in line with the other work we have going on in the background.”
Though world championship points have still eluded them, Force India have clinched a top-ten finish in 2009 - Adrian Sutil took ninth in Australia - and Mallya admitted their pace has exceeded his expectations.
“We always said that the first four flyaway races would be extended test sessions and we have indeed used them wisely,” he said. “We've accustomed ourselves to the new systems, new personnel and new ways of working and introduced some very worthwhile upgrades.
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