Oliver WhiteAlthough among the last of the cars to be launched, Force India’s 2009 challenger, the VJM02, was given a shakedown at Silverstone earlier in the week. Today, photographs of the short test as well as some studio images that show the squad’s new livery have been spreading around the Internet. It is currently unclear as to whether or not this was intentional, as the team were supposed to be revealing the car tomorrow just prior to the group test at Jerez.
The change in style for team brings the colours of the VJM02 closer to those used on the flag of India, using the white, green and orange to good effect. The overalls also have been updated and show a nice splash of orange across the front. The team also have extra logos on the car, but these are not newly enticed companies, rather than more of Vijay Mallya’s empire receiving some extra publicity.
For 2009, Mallya has stepped up his direct involvement with the team, taking on more responsibility of the day-to-day running. Last year he let Mike Gascoyne go after the pair decided that they didn’t agree with the future direction of the squad. While this was almost certainly a sizable loss for the team, having the owner around more could prove to be a good motivator.
This year will also see Force India with a different engine supplier. The squad signed a deal with McLaren and Mercedes-Benz which although meant waving goodbye to Ferrari, saw a shipment of engines, gearboxes and KERS components arrive at the Silverstone factory. Having a more complete package as well as technical expertise will undoubtedly boost the team. Whether or not it can be converted into decent results is still an unknown, but Adrian Sutil has looked fairly quick in the past, and Giancarlo Fisichella has enough experience to help with the development of the car.
The new car will take part in the Jerez test this upcoming week where both Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil should get a chance to drive the new VJM02.
Images © Sutton/Force India F1.
I really like the color-sheme, this is how last years honda should have looked like (thinking of red instead of orange)! Pretty design and also the best looking nose in my opinion (very much end-90s style). The rear part of the side of the car is a bit… ugly but in overall the car looks very balanced in it’s shape.
I always thought only a dark design like on the Test-Livery of Williams lets these new cars look halfway good, but as we see here… even with a lot of white, the car can look acceptable.
*thumbs up for force india in 2009*
I am not agreat fan of the livery but at least this year we are not going to confuse them with McLaren or anyone else. It’s a shame they didn’t choose to race the deep red livery. That looked really good and different to anything else on the grid.
I agree regarding the Force India, but then I’m not overly keen on the BMW, despite coming around to their livery last year.
There’s a joke in there somewhere! The livery, despite being (I think) rather uncontroversial, appears to have split people. From what I’ve read so far in comments around the blogs, people either like it or don’t. Compared to McLaren or Renault, where opinion definitely has a more common theme.
I think it looks quite good- the green nose should look neat from the in-car cameras on TV. The overalls also look good- WAY better than the Renault design 🙂
BTW, the photo of the three drivers walking with their helmets in hand is almost identical to photos McLaren have used of their drivers in similar style- I wonder where they got the idea from? 😉