“I would be disappointed if we don’t score points consistently this season (2010).” At the beginning of 2009, those words of Vijay Mallya would have seemed somewhat misplaced. After 17 Grands Prix this season, Force India made its critics eat the humble pie and forced them to sit up and take notice of them.
For the 2010 season, which kicks off in Bahrain on March 14, Mallya is already dreaming big. The reason behind it is the team’s tremendous performance after the mid-season break, which saw them score their first points at the Belgium GP.
“I’ve specified my targets to my engineers and if we achieve that we’ll be very competitive,” said Mallya, on the sidelines of a multi-million dollar contract Force India signed with Computational Research Laboratories (CRL), who will provide Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). CFD will aid the design of the team’s car for 2010 as well as improve the aerodynamic efficiency.
This is the first step in Mallya’s dream to see Force India among points consistently and the owner was excited about the tie-up. “CFD simulations are a critical part of Force India’s car design process to continually improve the cars aerodynamic performance.” He then added: “With ban on track testing, CFD will help us develop our car more accurately and 10 times faster. It will also help us to reduce cost.”
With this partnership, Force India’s design team will now have access to ‘eka’, India’s fastest supercomputer and one of the most versatile supercomputers in the world that is capable of 133 trillion calculations per second.
Mallya sounded frustrated for being criticised over not backing an Indian driver. “What people focus on is that an Indian wasn’t given a drive for 2010. But there is more to Force India than just putting a driver in the cockpit. I don’t want to support an Indian driver for the sake of it. To me there are no compromise,” he said.
He also announced that Force India will find a young Indian driver, invest in him and train him. “I once told the British media that among billion people there has to be one Lewis Hamilton,” he revealed.
Mallya plans to find India’s Hamilton through series of programmes across the country. “I promise I’ll put an Indian in that car,” he signed off.
