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Force India to test radical upgrades

Force India are to evaluate a radical overhaul of their car during testing at Silverstone this week as they bid to close the gap to the cars ahead of them

As well as a visibly different engine cover, which will see the VJM01 adopt a Red Bull-type shark fin, the Silverstone-based team will have other aerodynamic updates plus fit an 'inerter' damper.

Force India's chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne told autosport.com: "Yeah, we have got a big test coming up.

"We have got a big aero upgrade. New bodywork, sidepods, diffuser, front wing and engine cover. We are also running our front inerter damper. We have got some more suspension modifications, so we are fairly hopeful of making quite a big step forward.

"Obviously we need to do this. F1 is incredibly competitive at the moment and you need to be within a second of pole to get into Q2.

"It's good for F1, but we are the smallest team and the youngest team and that makes our job very hard. But that's right and proper and we have got to get on with it."

Gascoyne believes the improvement should help the team make the first step of the improvements they need to lift themselves up the order - with their seamless shift system set to be raced for the first time in Hungary.

"We need to be half a second a lap quicker and hopefully we should be making a step of several tenths," said Gascoyne about the progress expected with the new parts this week.

"But then moving from that, at the next test around Hockenheim we should be running our quickshift box. So we have quite a lot updates coming and we clearly need them."

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