Force India release VJM05

Force India take the wraps off the VJM05

Force India are the third team to show off their 2012 car – the VJM05.

The car was shown to the press at the Silverstone circuit, where it was given its first laps by Paul di Resta.

The car incorporates the new nosecone design similar to Caterham, and heavily redesigned sidepods. The “blade” roll hoop has been dropped in favour of the more conventional design.

The livery has been changed again, with partial owners Sahara now featured prominently on the side of the car.

Technical director Andy Green called the VJM05 a “big departure” from the 2011 version:

We’ve got a new front wing which sets up all the basic structures along the car 
and it’s a big step for us. It took us quite a long time and to go away from how 
perhaps we traditionally worked. The package is a big departure from what we’ve 
done before and the wind tunnel numbers are really encouraging and we’re looking 
forward to getting it on the track and seeing if it does produce what it should do.

The loss of the blown-exhaust is a bigger effect than lowering the nose. Massively 
bigger. We were quite late with extracting what we could from our diffuser last 
year and I don’t think it reached its potential by a long way. There were teams 
out there who extracted way more than we did. Hopefully it will hurt them more 
this year than it will us.

We spent the winter trying to salvage all the downforce we lost and I think we’ve 
got close. My feeling is that it should close the field up. You only have to look 
at Silverstone last year to see what effect it had."

The team have stated that their intention is to finish 5th in the constructors’ championship.