Inside the Force India revival masterplan

It's still only a matter of weeks since Force India was on the brink of oblivion. At one stage Sergio Perez was so convinced that the team would go bust mid-season that he was actively seeking employment elsewhere - as were a good many Force India personnel.

It's a measure of the team's underlying potential that in the first five races since its rebirth at Spa under Lawrence Stroll's ownership, it has secured four double top-10 finishes for Perez and Esteban Ocon. Singapore - where Perez and Ocon clashed on the first lap - was the only weekend where the newly renamed Racing Point Force India missed out.

In an ideal world it would now have amassed 102 points, be clear of Renault, and in a prime spot to nail fourth place in the constructors' standings for a third straight season.

Instead, since legal technicalities forced Stroll to buy the assets of the team, lodge a new entry, then start again from zero, Racing Point Force India now lies seventh in the world championship. But it is just 15 points behind McLaren with four races to go; and, while Haas is out of reach in fifth, sixth place is very much a realistic target.

"We're going to see how far we can get," says Otmar Szafnauer, who took on the role of team principal after the takeover. "If we can continue to have our double points finishes, and better than ninth and 10th, sixth is possible. After that it's difficult. Even if we finish seventh and eighth every race, that's only 40 points. Sixth is definitely doable, but I think fifth is out of reach now."

Now that former owner Vijay Mallya and his deputy Bob Fernley are out of the picture Szafnauer is firmly in charge at Silverstone, tasked with putting Stroll's plans into action.

For the first time his hands are not tied by the financial restrictions that often forced the team to start the season with a car slower on track than it was on paper, and unable to implement planned updates. In Stroll the revived outfit has an ambitious and forceful character who hasn't made his fortune by chance. He's clearly very much hands-on, and is someone who says what he thinks.

"Now that he's bought the team I've got to know him and some of the other shareholders too," says Szafnauer. "We now have to all work together, the shareholders and employees, to deliver and to set the objectives for the future. You've got to have that relationship in order to do that.

"He's definitely a motivator and he's a clear and direct talker, so you get good direction. He's got high expectations, which is fine by me. I grew up in a society in the States where people had expectations when they're laying out a bunch of cash.

"I'm happy the expectations are there. We'll work hard to make sure we deliver upon those expectations. The nice thing about Lawrence is he tells you exactly what he's thinking, and he's straightforward about it. You can have a debate with him, and he'll listen, and you'll come to a conclusion. But once a decision is made, then you've got to get on with it."

Up until August Szafnauer had the difficult job of keeping the Force India ship steady as its financial situation grew ever more precarious. Eventually administration proved the only viable course of action, and there were five formal bids from putative owners.

"The good thing is there is value in the team, because we finished fourth two years in a row and have a good car this year as well. So it was a different proposition than some of the others who went into administration who hadn't scored any points, or just a few.

"We're capable of scoring 150 points a year, and finishing in a position where the money from FOM is significant. I had high hopes that because of those things we would get some credible bidders, and as it turned out there were more than the Stroll consortium that were credible.

"There were a few others too, and that gave the employees comfort that when we came out of it we would come out with a financially stable solution, as opposed to what happened to Caterham and Marussia in the past. That was the bright side of things, but there's always risk, and you never know what's going to happen.

"It did happen quite quickly, and the upside became known very fast, in a couple of weeks. That was necessary because a lot of the senior people in the team had offers from others which they were seriously considering, and would have taken had the team not survived."

Could key engineers have used the situation to walk away from their contracts?

"It was going to be hard to fight. You don't pay, people leave - what are you going to do, sue them? That's not really realistic. So it was really important to get it all done within a short period of time and make everybody feel secure, especially financially."

The administration process had to be quick for other reasons. It was handily timed for the summer break, so there were three weeks with no races, the employees were away, and factory running costs were low. That window had to be used first to confirm a new owner, and then ensure that the team could make it to Spa.

"I had zero say into who the successful bidder was through administration," says Szafnauer. "The thing I had a big impact on was keeping the team together.

"Had we not been able to keep the team together, the purchase may not have happened, because what you're really purchasing with us is not the building.

"As far as manufacturing and R&D facilities go, dynos, a good windtunnel, all the infrastructure that a modern F1 team has, we have none of that. So the value of the team was the people, and my big job was trying to keep them together so the value was there for the bidding process. And that's where I think I helped."

Szafnauer is proud of the way his staff remained loyal: "It wasn't automatic, it did take a little bit of convincing, but the thing I'm most proud of is when I said, 'Stick with it, I think there's a bright future,' people believed me.

"That kind of trust just doesn't happen by talking, it's through years of earning that trust."

Documents recently released by administrator FRP Advisory provided detailed insight into the process. The only bid that involved a share sale - in other words a takeover of the original company as a going concern - was from Stroll. The others specified a straight purchase of the assets. FRP says that's why Stroll was chosen, as the priority was to keep the original company alive if possible.

Crucially the Stroll bid also included a Plan B, provision for a £90million purchase of the assets should a share sale not prove possible. And when the Indian banks that controlled Mallya's shares failed to grant the required approval before the deadline, FRP simply switched to Stroll's asset offer of £90m.

Rival bidder Dmitry Mazepin's main argument is that at this stage the process should have been reopened, especially given that his Uralkali firm had already posted a higher bid for the assets. It remains to be seen how the legal action the company is now taking against FRP - not Stroll or the team - pans out.

With his sizeable funding and paddock connections, Stroll appears to be a perfect fit, but Szafnauer denies that he had any form of special relationship with the Canadian that helped encourage the deal along.

"That's not necessarily true. My relationship with Lawrence is a lot shorter than my relationship with some of the other bidders. BWT was a bidder, and I've known them for much longer. Mazepin bid, and I've known him for years longer than Lawrence.

"My relationship with Lawrence and the consortium was just the opposite. I knew him the least."

FRP confirmed the asset sale to Stroll on August 16, just eight days before first practice at Spa. A new company had to be formed, a new team created, and new entry accepted in the middle of the season. It was an unprecedented situation - the FIA didn't even have a late-entry form. But all the F1 stakeholders rallied round to ensure the team survived.

"It was really good to see that both the FIA and FOM were behind the continuation of Force India, making sure that the fourth-placed team didn't go by the wayside, saving 405 jobs, and also continuing where we left off. If we didn't have their support, the outcome could have been different.

"I'm grateful to both the FIA and the commercial rights holder for recognising the mutual benefit for everybody in F1 to come to a solution that would save the team. Both were very supportive of Force India continuing. And the other teams supported us too."

Nevertheless Gene Haas is yet to be convinced that the new team is entitled to the full prize money accrued by its predecessor.

One of the key conditions laid down by the FIA and F1 was that all the creditors had to be paid in full. Mercedes and Perez were the highest profile, but dozens of businesses and individuals were on FRP's list.

The usual outcome in these situations is that a legal process unfolds and then eventually the £90m purchase price is used to pay off the creditors. Stroll took the unusual step of taking over all the debts (independently of the £90m purchase price) and paying them off straight away. He's the one who now has to wait for that legal process to play out, so that he gets his money back.

"It's important to note that the current shareholders have taken all the risk for the creditors," says Szafnauer. "And have put it in extra money such that the creditors can be paid off immediately, and not at some future date, post-administration. That can take one or two years sometimes.

"Lawrence wanted to do what's right by the suppliers that have supported us, and a lot of them are industry suppliers who don't just supply us, but other teams in the paddock. And he thought it was right to take care of those people, by guaranteeing that they get 100% of their debt, and in a timely fashion.

"We're going through all of them, just as they come up, so probably 100% or if not 95% of them will be paid by the middle of October. That's not usually what happens in administration, and it's something that we should take note of."

Stroll has kept a low profile since the sale, but it's clear that this deal is not just about Force India muddling through and surviving. He wants his team to start closing in on the top three.

"That is the plan," says Szafnauer. "Next year we won't have a new factory yet. We'll have some infrastructure, but pretty much using the same tools that we have now. We won't have many more people. Next year's improvements will come from the fact that we won't be starved of money once we do the experiments and progress on development. The car should be as good as it can be at the start of the season.

"Thereafter, once the infrastructure improves, then we will be able to make some strides to being a top three team. I think next year we will be closer, but the year after I think we should take a significant step forward, when we have some of the other infrastructure put in place.

"We just have to make sure that we don't take our eye off the ball of having the best racing car we can while we're working on improving our infrastructure. I've seen it happen so many times, where you start building a new factory, and the performance drops. We're aware of that, and we have to make sure that we put the processes and procedures in place to avoid that happening."