Team Biography

It was in September 2006, during the Italian GP weekend, that Shnaider sold the team to Spyker Cars NV, the Dutch high performance car manufacturer. One year later, days after the 2007 Belgian GP, it was officially confirmed that Spyker was selling the team to a consortium led by Indian businessman Vijay Mallya and Michiel Mol for 88m euros.

Billionaire Mallya, who enjoys a high profile in India, where he is an MP in addition to being chairman of both the Federation of Motorsports Clubs in India (FMSCI) and Motorsport Association of India (MAI), is keen to raise his country's profile, and in addition to purchasing Spyker and renaming the team Force India, has been instrumental in getting India its own Grand Prix.

Under new ownership, Spyker saw out the remaining races of the 2007 season with a new livery but retained Sutil and Yamamoto, the German getting the new relationship off to the best possible start by scoring a point in Japan, the first race under the team's new ownership.

Over the course of the two final tests of 2007 the team ran a number of hopefuls as it sought to define its line-up for 2008, amongst those pounding the tarmac at Barcelona and Jerez were Giancarlo Fisichella, Ralf Schumacher, Christian Klien, Tonio Liuzzi, Franck Montagny, Roldan Rodriguez and Adrian Sutil, who seemed a shoe-in for one of the 2008 seats anyway.

After weeks of speculation, at a special ceremony in Mumbai on 10 January, Mallya confirmed his line-up, with Fisichella and Sutil taking the race seats and Liuzzi assuming the role of test driver.

Mallya was at pains to warn that race fans should not expect too much too soon, however, he was also keen to point out that Force India is a descendent of Jordan, a proven GP winner, with many of the original personnel still in place.

If nothing else, in the short term Mallya's arrival meant Force India had a decent budget, certainly compared to the previous couple of seasons.

However, armed with the VJM01 a derivative of the Spyker F8-V11, which was itself a derivative of the 2006 Midland M16, the Silverstone-based team was always going to be up against it in its first season proper.

Mark Smith was brought in from Red Bull, to join Mike Gascoyne, the duo having previously worked together at both Jordan and Renault. Smith was handed the role of 'Design Director', and given the immediate job of overseeing both the 2008 and 2009 cars.

2008 was always going to be an interim year, however, by season end, despite the obvious handicaps, the Silverstone outfit was giving Honda a run for its money, though perhaps that says more about the Brackley team.

The 2007 car was re-bodied and the team updated its windtunnel, with further work being done in the Lola and Aerolab facilities.

The introduction of a new quick-shift gearbox and a major aerodynamic upgrade at Silverstone clearly made a difference, but in all honesty it was too little too late. The Ferrari powerplant did its bit, as expected, but Mallya knew that if his team was to make improvements serious changes were needed.

The precise details of the deal are unknown, but shortly after the end of the season, following weeks of speculation, it was announced that a deal had been done with McLaren and Mercedes. While the German manufacturer would provide engines, McLaren would be responsible for gearboxes, hydraulic systems and operational support. McLaren Mercedes would also provide the Silverstone team with a KERS system.

However, this was not all. A number of highly respected people moved across to Silverstone, most notably Simon Roberts, who was appointed Chief Operating Officer. Indeed, according to Pitpass sources, McLaren personnel now populate most key departments at Force India, even in marketing. Mike Gascoyne, not for the first time, left the Dadford Road facility before his contract had expired, while (Design Director) Mark Smith and (Technical Director) James Key were given joint responsibility for the design of the VJM02.

The McLaren deal led to talk of Force India becoming the Woking outfit's B-team, and when Ron Dennis announced that he was standing down as Team Principal some people started putting two and two together and coming up with all manner of scenarios, most of them highly unlikely.

Neither driver was really given the opportunity to shine in 2008 however, there were two obvious landmark moments. The first was Fisichella's twelfth place on the grid at Monza while the other was Sutil's superb performance at Monaco, where a sure-fire fourth place was taken snatched away by Kimi Raikkonen's out-of-control Ferrari.

Both drivers were retained for 2009, the Italian now the second most experienced driver on the grid. Tonio Liuzzi was also kept on as test driver though under the new rules it was unclear - as was the case with so many other test drivers - what exactly he'd be doing.

When Mallya first came into F1 there was speculation as to his staying power indeed, the depth of his pockets however, the deals with McLaren and Mercedes indicate that he is in for the long haul and fully prepared to bankroll the team and its ambitions.

While the record books will show that Force India scored 13 points in 2009, that in no way tells the full story, far from it. The raft of new regulations which meant that all the teams were starting with the same blank piece of paper, not to mention the drive to reduce budgets, was always going to work in favour of the Silverstone-based outfit. While there was also the McLaren-Mercedes deal, many were of the opinion that this was done too late to have any significant impact on Force India's 2009 season. They were wrong.

Originally designed for the Ferrari engine and KERS package, it was all hands on deck as technical director James Key, chief aerodynamicist Simon Philips and design director Mark Smith worked to accommodate the Mercedes FO108W powerplant, the McLaren gearbox and Mercedes KERS system.

For much of the season the team was "one development step behind," Key was to admit, none the less once the FIA had given its blessing to the double diffuser the Silverstone outfit was the first team to have one on both of its cars (Bahrain). Key subsequently admitted that over the off-season his team had looked at the concept of the double diffuser but was convinced it would never be allowed.

Once again, the team suffered appalling bad luck with Sutil skidding off in China when seemingly destined to take sixth place ahead of Lewis Hamilton, while at the Nurburgring the hapless German was forced to make an extra stop after crashing into Raikkonen when leaving the pits. At one stage he had been running as high as second.

Race by race the VJM02 was clearly improving and by the time the 'circus' arrived in Spa - for the first of the season's two seriously low-downforce races - the car was truly on song.

Up to this point Force India had struggled in qualifying, Sutil's 7th in Germany one of the rare occasions when the team made it into Q3. However, all that changed in Belgium where Fisichella took pole.

To prove that this was no fluke and that his team had finally arrived, Giancarlo finished a highly impressive second in the race, a Safety Car at the very start of the race robbing him of what could have been his team's first win. Finishing just 0.939s behind Kimi Raikkonen, the Italian posted the fastest lap of the race just to prove a point.

At Monza, with Giancarlo now deputising for Massa at Ferrari, Sutil put his car second on the grid while new teammate Liuzzi started from seventh. The following day the German brought the VJM02 home in fourth the Force India only out-paced by the Brawns and the ubiquitous Raikkonen. Liuzzi also seemed destined for a points finish until sidelined by a gearbox failure.

While there were no more points, Sutil did qualify fourth in Japan and third in China, as the Silverstone team continued to punch well above its weight.

Thirteen points and ninth in the championship doesn't begin to tell the story, and while most people regarded Brawn as the true fairytale of 2009 spare a thought for the fantastic efforts of the entire team at Force India.

For 2010, the Silverstone based outfit retained both drivers, while former director of strategy and business planning for the Honda F1 Team Otmar Szafnauer was recruited as chief operating officer taking over from Simon Roberts who headed back to McLaren Applied Technologies after just one year at Dadford Road. Elsewhere, highly rated technical director James Key was pinched by Sauber.

While the stats might not support it, the fact is that Force India continued to punch above its weight in 2010, albeit in less dramatic fashion than the previous year.

Starting the season around a second off the pace of the Red Bulls, the gap was about the same by the end of they year. Where the Silverstone based outfit lost out however, is that by then it had been eclipsed by both Williams and Sauber.

As it tried to focus on development, like so many of its rivals, precious resources needed to be diverted in order to copy the two biggest innovations of the year, the F-duct and the blown diffuser.

Sticking with the Mercedes engine/McLaren gearbox package that had proved so successful in 2009, the VJM03 was an improvement in that it was better across a wider rage of tracks, whereas the VJM02 was at its best mainly when high downforce wasn't required.

While the team introduced its F-duct in Turkey, the blown diffuser made its race debut in Belgium having been tried during the free practice sessions in Hungary. The team was constantly playing around with its front wing while over the course of the season no less than seven different floors were used.

Although he qualified tenth in Bahrain, Sutil was involved in a first lap clash with Robert Kubica, leaving Liuzzi to open the team's 2010 points account. It was Liuzzi who added a further 6 points in Australia, Sutil suffering an engine problem nine laps into the race, however, the German took advantage of the conditions and rivals' misfortunes to take a splendid 5th in Malaysia.

In Spain the team begun a sequence of six races in which it scored points however, in the second half of the season it continued to lose ground, the only highlights being Sutil's 5th in Belgium and Liuzzi's 6th in Korea. The Silverstone outfit's failure to score points in the two final races meant that Nico Hulkenberg's eighth place finish in Brazil was enough to see the Grove outfit leapfrog it and secure sixth in the Constructors' Championship.

There were no podiums, no front rows - though Sutil did qualify 4th in Malaysia - and no battles with Ferrari, far less Red Bull, but on the whole, it wasn't a bad season for the Silverstone team.

After months of speculation, and even though he had a contract, Liuzzi was eventually dropped in favour of Scotland's Paul di Resta, the reigning DTM champion joining Sutil who is enjoying his fourth season with the team. Just to keep them on their toes, in a clever move, the team recruited German hot-shot Nico Hulkenberg as its test and reserve driver.

Going into 2011, of great concern was that behind the scenes the team had lost newly promoted technical director Mark Smith - who had replaced Key - chief designer Lewis Butler, and head of aerodynamics Marianne Hinson, all three heading to Lotus. On the other hand, the Andrew Green designed VJM04 would no doubt benefit from the Silverstone outfit's partnership with McLaren Applied Technologies.

A number of teams experienced a season of two halves in 2011, and so too did Force India. However, while its rivals appeared to drop off as the season progressed, the Indian team grew stronger and by season end was challenging Renault for fifth in the championship.

In the first race of the year in Australia, Sutil and di Resta finished eleventh and twelfth but were subsequently promoted to ninth and tenth after both Saubers were disqualified for a technical infringement.

There was another point in Malaysia however, it was Monaco before the team scored again, Sutil bringing his car home in seventh.

In qualifying the team also struggled, though di Resta did well to make it into Q3 in China, starting eighth on the grid however he was to finish the race just outside the points.

The VJM04 was a no frills machine, what some might call conservative. However, it was a solid foundation of a car that could be built upon, which is exactly what the team did. Having scored just twelve points in the first half of the season, from Germany the Silverstone outfit racked up a further fifty-seven.

The drivers, now beginning to make it into Q3 on a slightly more regular basis - that's when tactical errors didn't let the team down - were able to make full use of the constant updates, scoring points in every remaining round bar Japan.

Though di Resta was unable to capitalise on his excellent sixth spot on the grid at Silverstone, he made up for it in Hungary when he brought his car home in seventh. In Singapore he finished a strong sixth, ahead of his eighth placed teammate, while the positions were reversed in the season finale in Brazil.

Having overtaken Sauber in the standings the Indian team rapidly hauled in Renault which, following a strong start to its season, was now running out of steam. However, it was not to be, Renault holding on to fifth in the standings by the skin of its teeth (four points), despite having scored just eight points in the last ten races of the season.

In October 2011, it was announced that Sahara India Pariwar had bought into the team - which subsequently became Sahara Force India - injecting a much welcome $100m in return for a 42.5% stake in the team. Vijay Mallya retains another 42.5% while the remaining 15% belongs to the Mol family. The shares sold were newly issued, neither Mallya nor Mol sold any of their existing shares.

Despite the fact that the 2012 line-up was common knowledge, for reasons best known to itself the team left it until mid-December before revealing that Paul di Resta would remain with the team and would be partnered by Nico Hulkenberg.

Having scored the bulk of the team's points, and finished ninth in the championship, Sutil will feel more than a little irked at the decision, especially as the only vacant seats remaining are at Williams and HRT. However, fact is, di Resta was very impressive, certainly for a rookie, as is Hulkenberg.

All in all, it was a strong season for the team, which, unbelievably, achieved its best championship result since 2002. However, it must learn from its mistakes. In 2012 it will need to be competitive straight out of the box while the team needs to sort out the strategic errors that saw it lose ground in both races and qualifying during 2011.

Statistics - at the end of the 2011 Season

Drivers' Titles: 0
Constructors' Titles: 0
Seasons in F1: 4
Grand Prix:73
Wins: 0
Poles: 1
Fastest Laps: 1

Best result in 2011: 6th (3 times)
Best qualifying 2011: 6th (Di Resta - Britain)
Worst qualifying 2011: 18th (Di Resta - Belgium)

2011: Sutil out-qualified Di Resta 10 times
2011: Di Resta out-qualified Sutil 9 times

2011: Completed 2162 out of 2266 laps (95.4%)
2011: Finished 35 times from 38 starts (92.1%)