A force (India) to be reckoned with

After the glory days of 1999, when Heinz-Harald Frentzen flirted with a world championship challenge, the team that Eddie Jordan thrust into Formula 1 in 1991 headed into decline.

From 2000-02 came three seasons in which Jordan finished either fifth or sixth in the constructors' championship. After that, as funding was reduced, it finished ninth for three consecutive seasons. Ahead of the last of those years the team was bought, and for 2006 it morphed into Midland. The following year it became Spyker and, towards the end of that season, it took another identity change to Force India after Vijay Mallya took control of the team.

Instability reigned at the Silverstone team, which had scored a grand total of one point during 2006 and '07. Most expected Mallya to be the next in a line of short-lived owners. What happened on track in 2008, following the name change to Force India, did little to change that expectation, and at the end of the season the team was again rooted to the bottom of the constructors' championship (ignoring Super Aguri, which had faded into oblivion after four races).

The 2008 season brought few highs for Force India © LAT

Yet change was already underway. The following season the team was strong enough to take pole position and finish second at Spa with Giancarlo Fisichella. In 2010 it finished seventh in the constructors' championship, just one point behind Williams and, as of today, it holds sixth in the standings. It has been a remarkable turnaround for a team that was in something of a mess when Mallya took over.

Bob Fernley, long-time Mallya cohort and a man with a long history of running racing cars, is now the deputy team principal of Force India. For day-to-day purposes, he is the de facto team principal and has been key in the team living up to Mallya's expectations.

"After he concluded the deal, Vijay asked me if I would join the board and have a look at what the team was doing," explains Fernley. "Once we got into 2008, it became apparent that the team wasn't moving in the right direction. Vijay authorised me to put together a restructuring plan so we implemented that in November."

The plan was far-reaching, with team principal Colin Kolles and chief technology officer Mike Gascoyne both ousted. But long before this was put in place, Force India had been working on a deal that proved central to its climb up the grid. From around May 2008, discussions were ongoing with McLaren about a technical partnership that gave Force India a Mercedes engine, McLaren transmission and hydraulics, and access to a huge amount of expertise.

"There was a time when McLaren was looking at a customer car for [Prodrive chief] David Richards," says Fernley. "Vijay remembered that, so we approached Ron Dennis and Martin Whitmarsh.

2009 was better though, Fisichella impressively on pole in Belgium © LAT

"The partnership was pivotal in our progress because it took away the worry of the gearbox and the hydraulics and it introduced us to Mercedes. It also gave us a raft of other services that we could use, such as simulators. This was a key part of the growth process.

"My expertise is not in organising the manufacturer and design side of the team, so Simon Roberts was seconded to the team from McLaren for a year as chief operating officer to put the systems in place. Fundamentally we weren't far away; it just needed tweaking and improving, and Simon was pleasantly surprised at how good Force India was. After a year, we could hand over to Otmar Szafnauer [current chief operations officer] with a system that, while not perfect, was well underway."

This technical partnership allowed Force India to focus its resources on aerodynamic development. (In 2008, for example, a huge amount of money had been poured into its seamless-shift-gearbox programme. This technology worked, but only as well as everybody else's, so it gave the team no advantage.) With a McLaren 'box bolted onto the car, the factory could be restructured for maximum effort to be put into the rest of the car.

While the turnaround was not instant, Force India enjoyed a 2009 that showed glimpses of real progress. Only twice did the team score points, with Fisichella's stunning second place at Spa and Adrian Sutil's fourth in the following race at Monza, both thanks to a car of remarkable aero efficiency that lacked tremendous peaks of downforce. It was enough to move the team ahead of Toro Rosso in the constructors' points.

"There were a number of significant shifts of focus in 2009," says Fernley. "The team slimmed down, with people repositioned, and an emphasis on developing performance through aero programmes. It was quite successful. We looked at bringing in KERS and built our chassis to accommodate it, but decided that we weren't quite ready and needed to focus on performance."

Spa in 2009 also brought the team's first podium © LAT

The true watershed year was 2010. The car retained the fundamental characteristics of its predecessor, but was now a more competitive proposition across a range of circuits. In the first three races the team racked up 18 points, including Adrian Sutil's superb fifth place, ahead of Lewis Hamilton, at the Malaysian Grand Prix.

After the British Grand Prix, the 10th round of the championship, Force India was a remarkable sixth in the constructors' championship with a haul of 47 points courtesy largely of the ever-improving Sutil. Then the team started to struggle and Q3 appearances became ever rarer. In the remaining nine races, there were only three in which the Force Indias of Sutil and Vitantonio Liuzzi scored. This allowed Williams to snatch sixth place in the standings by just one point.

It was in the second half of last season that the bold plans that have allowed Force India to establish itself in sixth in the championship this year came together.

"In 2010 it started very well for us," says Fernley. "We had understood the double diffuser well, but two thirds of the way through the season exhaust-blown floors started to become a very big thing and we lost our way. We just couldn't get it to work and that cost us sixth place to Williams. So we had to take a step back and understand what had gone wrong. That took a long time."

The decision was made to start afresh with the aerodynamic concept of the car. The first iteration of the aero package hit the wind-tunnel in October and, initially, downforce levels were lower. This was to be expected, and the decision was made to start 2011 with a car that was a relatively conservative evolution of the previous year's car while focusing on this new concept.

Fernley is vice team principal © sutton-images.com

This meant a slow start to the season, with only four points in the first five races. It was easy to conclude that the team was dropping back to its natural level. With just over 300 people and relatively modest facilities, not to mention the departure of technical top dogs James Key (to Sauber) and Mark Smith (to Lotus) since the start of the 2009 season, it was easy to create a convincing trajectory for the team. Had the success of the previous two years merely been a flash in the pan?

Fortunately it proved not to be the case. The new package first appeared during Friday practice for the Spanish Grand Prix, although much of it was removed for the race. Over the next few weekends the team, now under technical director Andy Green, worked to understand what was effectively its 'real' 2011 car rather than an interim machine, and by the British Grand Prix it was good enough for Paul di Resta to qualify sixth.

"It was a huge decision and credit to Vijay for supporting the proposal from the team and management," says Fernley. "That goes to show his genuine desire to compete at the top end. It was a difficult decision, but one that had to be taken. It has benefited us, but it could easily have gone the other way.

"We didn't want to lose James and Mark, but when we restructured the team we took it in a direction that meant that if you do lose people, you can continue. The Spyker team was very hierarchical, which is an old-fashioned way of running an F1 team. The McLaren model, which is a more corporate model with a flatter structure, allows you to lose people and not feel the impact. That is what we adopted."

Vijay Mallya has provided the capital investment for his squad © LAT

The results certainly bear out that claim. Force India has scored heavily in the second half of the season to climb to sixth in the standings. Both drivers have also done an excellent job and, while di Resta has rightly earned the plaudits for his very impressive debut season, Sutil has bounced back from a difficult start to put together what is surely his best campaign in F1. His sixth place in Germany, in particular, was a classy drive and he's unfortunate that the imminent promotion of Nico Hulkenberg to a race seat in 2012 leaves him searching for pastures new.

The drivers are a key part of the team's success. Unlike some, Force India isn't afraid to invest in quality pilots. Di Resta appeared sporadically last year during Friday-morning practice, building the experience needed to emerge as the strongest driver in a very impressive 2011 rookie crop, a process that has been repeated by Hulkenberg. And Sutil's proven pedigree meant that once the car was capable of scoring, the points would come rolling in.

"The philosophy we have - and I've always believed this to be the case in motor racing - is that you should have the best drivers that you can afford," says Fernley. "Different teams have different financial models, but we're fortunate to have Vijay to support our needs. Paul's progress has been significant over the past two years, and Adrian has been at the top of his game for a while and has been a great contributor to the team.

"Outside the top teams, we have the best driver line-up in F1 across our three drivers. It was a clear piece of thinking that in order to move forward, we had to have quality drivers and quality feedback."

With three races to go, it's likely that Force India will end the season in sixth place. Inevitably the next aim will be to take a further step and move up to fifth, with the buy-in of Sahara India providing further funding to invest in facilities, particularly where it comes to aerodynamic development.

There's no question that Mallya deserves credit for sticking with the team and making good on promises to move up the grid. After all, such lofty ambitions are very rarely achieved in F1. Whether Force India will encounter a glass ceiling that prevents it getting in among the top four teams in the next few years is a fair question, as at best it is a medium-sized team, but the pattern of improvement now stretches back a few years and the investment plans should be taken seriously.

Back in 2007, when Mallya took over, it seemed another step on the road to oblivion. But it wasn't. Ahead of the inaugural Indian Grand Prix, where the team could give the crowd plenty to cheer about, the team is unquestionably in its best shape for a decade.