[India Property, Real Estate India] Q&A with Dr. Vijay Mallya

[Noida Property 7]

Vijay Mallya, Chairman and Team Principal of the Force India Formula One team talks about the evolution of the Force India Team on the F1 circuit, and the chances of seeing an Indian racing in a Force India car.
 
Q: Can you tell us how Force India has evolved over the years and what we can expect in 2011?
Dr.Vijay  Mallya: When we bought the Spyker team at the end of 2007 we basically inherited everything. We inherited the car, the technical leadership, the management. And so in 2008 while the team was rebranded Force India, it wasn't a true Force India year because there were no changes we could really make. I gave the existing management team and technical team a fair chance

. They kept promising me better results but all I saw was the same old story of the two Spyker cars running around the back competing against themselves. I mean there was no question of getting into Q2, forget about Q3 and of course points were a long distance away. So in 2008, I actually made some radical decisions,

changed the technical leadership, the management, entered into a technical partnership with McLaren, changed the Mercedes engine, took the McLaren gearbox and hydraulics package and then I made a statement, I said in 2009 we want to just score points. Of course in 2009 we scored 13 points, a lot many more than the team scored in the last decade but we also had a pole position, a fastest lap and a podium finish which was the icing on the cake

For 2010 I said that we must be regularly in the points and I think with 68 world championship points under our belt  I think we have demonstrated that we were regular point scorers this year. And I said for 2011 we will be even more regular in scoring points and hopefully get a few podiums as well and I'm bang on track as far as I am concerned I feel confident that the team has delivered according to plan and we will continue down this track. Of course my critics do say that we kind of tapered off at the end of the current season.

It's unfortunate we were just one point behind Williams. We had a 17 point lead five races ago. So, yeah if we came down from fifth place to seventh we have nobody to blame but ourselves. We have had our fair share of bad luck but you cannot blame everything on luck but Williams did a better job with their blown diffuser than we did. Unlike the fact that when the double diffuser came in, we very quickly in the previous year not only introduced the double diffuser but enhanced the performance quite significantly.

Sadly this wasn't the case with the blown diffuser this year and so Williams really improved and then of course from about September we started concentrating heavily on the 2011 car and spent less on developing the 2010 car. So a combination of these two factors probably cost us sixth place by just one little point.

But I think I can go back and sleep happy cause nobody ever expected that we would be able to earn more points than the team has ever earned in its history since it was Jordan Grand Prix. 2011 is going to be a challenge but we are looking forward to that challenge. Of course no double diffuser, no movable front wing, KERS being introduced, the movable rear wing being introduced. So it is quite a daunting technical task but we are well on our way and we feel quite happy and confident that we will be competitive next year.


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Posted By Noida Property 7 to India Property, Real Estate India at 11/22/2010 11:35:00 AM