Force India confident of further gains in Hungary

20 July 2009 15:53
Although Force India ultimately left the last round in Germany disappointed, their performance over the race weekend was highly encouraging, with Adrian Sutil qualifying in seventh and racing as high as second.The team's chief race engineer Dominic Harlow is certainly pleased with the performance of the upgrades they have introduced to the VJM02 over the course of the season and, with more revisions set to be introduced for this weekend's Hungarian race, he is hopeful of more success in Budapest.“We achieved our ultimate goal of mixing it in the midfield and trying and push for points-scoring positions, so yes it was very encouraging from that point of view,” said Harlow. “We have a few more parts for Hungary. It's not the same magnitude as Silverstone, but we're keeping pace with our development plans and hopefully with the other teams. “There are some front wing, brake duct and floor developments that we are pushing through. There are also the usual small mechanical changes for Hungary. We will also do a little bit of extra work on the set-up side for that circuit because it's quite tricky. We'll also be back on the softer tyres again and I think with this compound we tend to go pretty well. We're quite optimistic.”Following this weekend's race in Hungary, Formula One racing's traditional summer break will get underway. And even though this year's regulations require all teams to close their factories for a large part of this period, Harlow expects the team to have another major upgrade ready for August's European Grand Prix.“We're closed from August 3rd to the 16th, and then we go straight to Valencia so pretty much all the work has to be done before the close down,” he explained. “ It's another upgrade target for us with a slightly bigger package of new parts coming. We will have further changes to the front wing again, and changes to the bargeboard area, and the front of the floor and sidepods. “Visually it will be fairly different. I thought last year Valencia levelled things a little bit, and we looked reasonably strong there, particularly with Giancarlo (Fisichella). I would hope that we would continue our trend.”[LNB]

Source: F1