Force India Aiming for Third in the Constructors' Championship

[Bethonie Waring]

Force India are targeting the top three following their best ever season in the Formula One championship.

The team beat Williams to fourth in the championship last season, but they are planning to improve further in the upcoming year.

“The passion to improve further is going to be pretty relevant in 2017,” said team principal Vijay Mallya. “If we did not dream big we would not have finished fourth in the world championship last year.

“We will always dream big. We have never had said, even in private, that we cannot break into the top three. That is going to be our objective. We’re going to give it our best shot.”​

The VJM10 was unveiled today at Silverstone, a totally redesigned car to comply with the regulations new for the 2017 season.

The car has a steep drop from the bulkhead to the “2014” style nose and a LMP1 style sharkfin at the back of the car.

“The 2017 regulations have meant that everybody has to start with a clean slate,” Mallya said. “I know that we have to continue to develop this car right through the 2017 season. There’s no stopping, because we’re starting from scratch. All teams will probably be doing the same.”​

Sergio Perez said the car looks physically demanding, and the wideness of the car could pose problems for street circuits such as Monaco and Baku.

Though there’s lots of talk about smaller teams struggling with the new regulations due to their lack of funds, but Force India don’t think that will be the case for them. The team is excited for the new season.

“I read in an article this morning that Cyril Abiteboul of Renault said poor teams such as Force India were going to suffer in this arms race,” said Mallya. “Good luck to him. He might have to eat his words. It’s not the amount of arms you have, it’s the quality of your weaponry.”​

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Do you think third is in reaching distance for Force India? What do you think of the design? Let us know in the comments below!

 

[Blkout]

Going to miss the nostril nose, I got to be honest. I thought it was the best feature from last year's car.

 

[Tr3voRR]

This is the most hideous thing I have ever laid my eyes on... I thought penis nose was going to be a thing of the past in 2017... but instead they double, triple the size... seriously wtf ??!!

 

[The Arj Guy]

Going to miss the nostril nose, I got to be honest. I thought it was the best feature from last year's car.

It is a nostril nose It is just because of the paint scheme, it doesn't look like one

 

[Chris]

It is a nostril nose It is just because of the paint scheme, it doesn't look like one

Oh wow, I never picked that up. Good spot!

 

[Filip Carlén]

This feels so unfinished. The fin literally looks like an unpainted sheet of metal. The car shape isn't super bad, it not perfect, but completely okay looking. But the color scheme makes it look really bad. The nose now looks like a completely other body part than nostrils *cough*, the fin looks like unpainted metal and it lacks the great contrast last years car had. Some Reddit-users photoshoped the fin it and it looks 100x better!: http://imgur.com/FmvUEaz

 

[Bethonie Waring]

I said on twitter yesterday: I have a problem that means I struggle to take in visual information. It's why, most of the time, F1 cars all look the same with different paint jobs to me. But even I can tell that this was an ugly car.

 

[Andy 'Mars Bar' Graham]

I think we could see a real shakeup in the grid, and Force India could potentially throw up an upset

 

[Sky]

A paintjob only ron dennis would describe as exciting.

 

[Scottt]

I appreciate the bit of smack talking from Vijay.

 

[Andrew Harper]

Hmmmm, not sure about the looks

I thought they'd stopped that step in the chassis forward of the front axle. There was a loophole in the old rules which stated that the area from the front of the cockpit to the front bulkhead had to be a certain height (also it's not allowed to angle upwards) but they forgot to stipulate the height of the nose from there so you ended up with the horrid steps in the nose. So the aero underneath the car is better but you have a nose which meets the minimum height requirements. This is slightly different as it's not so extreme but still not too keen on it.

I know the Audi LMP1 cars were called a bit on the ugly side but at least it was aggressive ugly. This just looks odd.

Also disappointed with the colour scheme, only because like Rebellion they always came up with something fresh but again this is a bit plain looking. Oh well.

I had high hopes for the cars this year but so far they've disappointed a little. We'll see how the look once they hit the track in Melbourne.

 

[Ernie]

From all so far revealed cars the Force India is the ugliest one. The Renault looks bad-ass compared to this.

 

[GP20]

Too much black.
I would not say the Renault looks better. It looks more "technic".

 

[Matheus Machado]

I really can't get why I should be worried about looks in a race car. Honestly if that car reaches third in the constructors this year. That will make it special, not modern looking pieces of carbon

 

[Blimey]

"LMP1 style sharkfin at the back of the car" I think F1 had it like 10 years ago.

 

[Boby Kim]

OMG F1 goes ugly P1 fins....should be forbidden. However...at the very end of that vertical fin there should be a moveable part so it acts like a planes rudder! Make some wings and instead of DRS zones there should be OTF zones: OverTake Flight zones. Overtaking ONLY during flight allowed. That would make F1 awesome

 

[Bethonie Waring]

OMG F1 goes ugly P1 fins....should be forbidden. However...at the very end of that vertical fin there should be a moveable part so it acts like a planes rudder! Make some wings and instead of DRS zones there should be OTF zones: OverTake Flight zones. Overtaking ONLY during flight allowed. That would make F1 awesome

I would vote for this.

 

[Blkout]

It is a nostril nose It is just because of the paint scheme, it doesn't look like one

Let me rephrase, I like the old nostril nose.