Force India decides against running in Jerez F1 test

The team had originally intended to use its 2014 car in Spain when the first winter test begins on Sunday.

Its new car is not going to be ready until the second test at Barcelona, after the outfit elected to maximise the development time allowed on it.

But just days before the Jerez test begins, Force India has announced that it is not going to attend at all.

"We have chosen not to run the old (2014) car in Jerez," said the team on Twitter. "The learning opportunities would have been limited so the focus is now on Barcelona."

It is unclear why the decision about the limited learning opportunities had come so late considering the team openly talked about doing the Jerez test as recently as last week.

However, Force India technical director Andrew Green is known to not be a big fan of Jerez as a testing venue, and has admitted that there was very little to be learned running there.

The situation may also have been impacted too by Force India having to run a 2014 Mercedes engine to fit its old car, plus the fact Pirelli's tyres will be almost identical to how they were in the Abu Dhabi test last year.

Speaking to AUTOSPORT last week about the Jerez plans, Green said: "There will be a few 2015 bits for driver evaluation, but there is still some data that we want to get off last year's car. So there will be a little bit of data gathering.

"The trouble with Jerez and tyres is that because of the unique Tarmac, learning about the tyres is really difficult. So we don't think we'll do that much there.

"We'll do some basic tests with the 2015 tyres, to discover how much they wear more than anything. The spec change from Pirelli appears to be a small step."