Formula1 – Force India on right track – A response

This morning’s TNIE has an article titled “Force India on the right track” is lazy, lame and appears to be the work of a journalist smitten by Vijay Mallya that the tone is flattering. Shouldn’t journalists spend a moment to ingest what the PR machinery of teams feed them and sift the fact from fiction and balance things out instead of appearing like extensions of a team’s PR machinery?

This piece contains wonderfully spun gems like: “Sahara Force India carries with it the weight of a nation, whose potential in sports is largely unfulfilled”. “Sahara Force India’s reason for existence is the promotion of auto racing in it’s home country”. “It is a very intense team, and not a whimsical off-shoot of a show-pony millionaire”.

Sahara doesn’t have lofty ambitions of educating the indian viewer on the intricacies of the sport, its probably more interested in furthering the reach of it’s brand. With the recent ruling from the Supreme Court of India to return money to it’s depositors, Sahara is going to be facing a financial crunch which will most certainly test it’s commitment to Formula 1, something this article fails to mention even in the passing.

Vijay Mallya’s expensive indulgence in the sport is also going to face a test of his grit and mettle, his own problems in Kingfisher Airlines worsening by the day and the pressing need to infuse his businesses with fresh capital. Sahara Force India has has done reasonably well in the sport this year, but will they be around next year? The last work is still in.

The Sahara Force India Formula 1 team

Yesterday Force India announced the sale of 42.5% of the team to the Sahara group. Dr Vijay Mallya retains 42.5% while Michel Moi keeps 15 % of the remaining shares. This would mean Dr Vijay Mallya has given up 7.5% of his shares while Moi’s family has given up 35% of theirs. The whole deal is valued at $100 million which is offloading equity for more than double the price it was purchased. In Sep 2007 the old Spyker F1 team became Force India F1 (FIF1), the deal then was rumoured to be around $80 million.

Dr Vijay Mallya vehemently denied reports in the media about a possible sale 5 days ago, his statement was cleverly worded in which he said “As Team Principal, I will continue to run the team and I have no plans whatsoever to exit.” He continues to remain Team Principal while Subrata Roy becomes Chairman of the team. It’s a wonderful opportunity for Sahara to continue making new inroads with it’s branding effort. It already has high brand recall and visibility being associated with sports in India, cricket being the biggest and with Formula 1 it gets to create a new identity in luring the motor racing fan and in creating a new fan base for the sport in the country.

Its well known that the aviation business of the UB group is in a crisis with the airline defaulting on many payments and looking for cash infusion to keep them afloat. The partial sale of equity in the formula 1 team could be part of a long term plan for the group in finding a honourable exit from the extremely cash hungry sport. It’s also a clear indication of the Moi family’s intentions, from being 50:50 partner to retaining just 15% stake.

The media in India has been more than glowing in its coverage of the Force India F1 team, probably because of the UB groups big advertisement budget and Dr Vijay Mallya’s cloud. In the past I’ve pointed out how the Force India F1 team wasn’t “indian” at all. Atleast that part changes a wee bit with the Sahara group’s entry. The media hasn’t bothered to question Dr Vijay Mallya when he loudly claims he brought the race to India. They won’t ask him how his team is Indian at all except for all the Kingfisher models who show up in the paddock on race weekends. Let’s hope more engineers, technicians and eventually at least one Indian driver gets to drive a Sahara Force India Formula 1 car. Until then … let’s wait and watch.

Formula 1 - How did it turn around? - A response

I usually try not to bother about how the press covers certain sporting events however this article in the Times of India is a good example of getting the facts wrong right from the word go.

The writer starts off by calling the erstwhile Spyker F1 team 'bedraggled and tardy'. Bedraggled they might have been but tardy, hardly. There's no space for tardy in the cut throat competition that exists in Formula 1. The writer should have known that Michiel Mol the co-owner of Force India also owned a part of the Spyker F1 team. Has he even heard about Mike Gascoyne who has worked with most of the F1 teams on the grid who was fired last year from FIF1?

The article goes on to say about the charm and convincing power of FIF1's team prinicipal. If McLaren were that convinced why was Simon Roberts taken aboard? Simon Roberts was McLaren's Operations Director at the time of being absorbed as COO in FIF1. Mercedes high performance engines was signed on as a engine supplier and McLaren would supply gearbox and hydraulic systems and also give on track support. KERS was available as an option which apparently FIF1 haven't exercised up till now. 

The only area where FIF1 has had to do some R & D was in the wind tunnel in Brackley which has a Jordan legacy attached to it. Of course the work these guys have done in the aero package has paid rich dividends in the medium downforce circuit that is Spa. Any one who has a decent understanding of the sport would invest in a windtunnel, that needn't be a good idea injust in 'hindsight'. The writer goes on to state that "Force India obviously found that important piece of the puzzle", pray what puzzle I ask? Isn't that a basic requirement if you want to run an F1 car in a competition?

The writer stretches his ignorance further by calling KERS "Kinetic Energy Restoration System" and "an ex McLaren brain" "Simon Peters". KERS my friend stands for Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems and the "ex McLaren brain" is Simon Roberts. A simple visit to FIF1's website would have helped the TOI writer to double check his facts. But that is just too much to ask isnt it because then he'd have also seen that not one name on 'the force' page is 'Indian' except the team prinicipal. In fact RIL (Reliance Industries) and the lovely women on Force TV (who apparently also double as pit babes) are what's only Indian in this Formula 1 team's website.

The icing on the cake is this statement -"Mallya has brought pride to a nation that has achieved a lot but has never been associated with this technology driven sport". Can someone please say what brings pride to a nation that doesn't have engineers this team thinks are talented enough to work for them, that doesn't have an F1 driver this team thinks is good enough to drive for them? As somone who has been following the sport since 1997 I take great interest in the sport. It's nice to see FIF1 make such a great improvement to their running, but to call it an achievement to India, to run cover story on our newspapers and to expect that all Indians should take great pride in it is simply stretching things a bit too far.

Imagine the amount of revenue a team can make if it converts even 1/3rd of the cricket crazy sports fans to watch F1. How much more sponsors will line up to support the live coverage of the sport? The bidding price for live coverage in Asia would run into billions of dollars, look at the broadcasters competing for cricketing rights. Force India is a Formula 1 team owned partly by an India but to paint the car in the colors of my national flag and to even expect me to applaud it's achievements only because it's 'supposedly' Indian is a fallacy.

F1 2009 - Thoughts after a race and a half

Albert Park this year has turned to be a complete revelation. Who'd have expected the team that almost didn't make it to active racing in 2009 to come from behind and take top honours. With testing having shown already that the usual front runners are going to have a lot of work to do to remain in the front and some surprises were in store. Williams is a good example of a team that seems to have got it almost right in terms of engine, aerodynamics and drivers. Their pace during testing has been quick and they've demonstrated considerable consistence topping time sheets. Toyota similarly have shown progress with their 2009 car during testing.

McLaren and Ferrari are the two front runners who seem to have a lot going against them. During testing they had huge problem keeping up with the rest of the pack though the reds from Italy managed to top the timesheets every now and then. It's another matter that these two teams adopted KERS early on and were focussed to run it on their car right from the first race.

Brawn GP came from nowhere with no sponsors in tow and swept the first race completely. Overnight Ross Brawn became a sensation, not that he was any less earlier. His work in Benetton with Michael Schumacher is part of F1 legend and the records he helped Michael break after moving to Ferrari is part of F1 folklore. Yes, Brawn was truly worthy of every bit of the praise it was receiving however probing a little further one would see that Honda Racing (before it became Brawn GP) spent all of 2008 developing the 2009 car. The 2009 car was supposed to be Ross Brawn's baby.

Jenson Button's second ever Formula 1 victory came in Brawn's first ever GP. Today in Sepang Jenson too his second consecutive pole position ever. Surely there's a lot in store for the fans.

Sebastian Vettel proved his driving capabilities in Torro Rosso last year and showed class in Melbourne this year. A freak incident with Robert Kubica cost both drivers their championship points and Vettel was served an unfair penalty of 10 grid places in Sepang. Sebastian Buemi's debut in active racing is proving to be interesting, there's going to be a lot to see from this guy this season. Force India with the ugliest looking car on the grid don't seem to have made rapid progress despite the technical support from McLaren-Mercedes. Ofcourse since they haven't done too much testing by mid season their true mettle will show.

After watching qualifying in Sepang I'm pretty sure of one aspect of this year. The frontrunners are the one's that are not running KERS and it makes sense because KERS needs significant economic investment. McLaren and Ferrari are the two consistent KERS runners and the weight of their cars are atleast 20-35 kgs more than the frontrunners. Add to this the fact that McLaren is having a problem with grip and cornering speeds and you know where the focus should lie. Easier said than done, how will McLaren go about closing the gap will be seen in the days to come. It would be unfair to expect McLaren to suddenly show up in the front row in the next race. However in a couple of races I expect them to be back in contention and I get this feeling that back in Woking a diffuser similar to the one's used by Brawn, Williams & Toyota are in the works and might debut in Spain, that would be subject to the FIA ruling from the hearing scheduled on the 14th of April w.r.t diffusers.

Starting from 13th & 14th would definitely not be a prospect Lewis & Heiki would be looking forward to but is there a choice? They will have to have a clean start and then make up as much places on the grid as possible. I hope Heiki adds to whatever Lewis is able to garner from each GP and avoid repeating the mistakes of last year. Over to Malysia .....

Formula1 - 2009 season - A curtain raiser

2009 will either turn out to be the year overtaking came back to F1 or the year of disastrous performances from drivers all and sundry. The reason being the sweeping changes introduced to the format this year. The absence of traction control brought a lot of focus back to the driver last year. We saw cars twitching into turns and skidding while driving out of it. Flat spotting tyres happened more often with drivers trying to outbrake each other into a turn. This year's regulations will bring max rev limit down to 18,000 rpm from 19,000 rpm. A driver will be allowed 8 engines for the season and 4 more for testing, any more engines will invite a 10 place penalty on the grid. Interestingly Renault has been allowed to introduce changes to it's engine to equalize performance with the others.

This years cars won't have any aerodynamic enhancements on their body work, this is to allow the cars running behind run in clean air rather than get caught in the turbulence impeding overtaking. The front wing will be seen lower and wider almost extending from end to end of the wheel of the car. Driver will be able to make adjustments to the wing from the cockpit, this has been limited to two adjustments per lap. Technically this means if a driver changed his wing to facilitate better traction on a slow curvy track, he'll have to switch to his normal position when he hit's a high speed straight. Any further change in the same lap won't be allowed though the quantum penalty he might invite is not clear yet.

KERS will see the light of the day in active racing this year. Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) is a new optional system which allows saving a car's energy lost normally during braking and makes it available for use on demand for the driver at a later stage. This system is designed to provide as much as 80 hp power to the driver, the catch here is that the driver is not allowed to use it for more than 6.7 seconds per lap. For the one's used to seeing the 'Fast and furious' series I believe we can imagine this to be something like the 'nitro boost' the drivers are shown to have in the movie. I'm ready to stick my neck out and say not all teams will run their cars with KERS in Melbourne, KERS comes with a significant handicap in terms of weight for the flywheel and battery and it might take some time for the teams to work out the performance equation which will vote for or against using KERS.

Bridgestone remains the lone supplier of tyres for F1 and this year's regulations bring in slicks back to active racing, no more grooves. Drivers will have to use two compounds in every race like last year but how the slicks fare in wet weather conditions is going to be anybody's guess. With reduced downforce this is surely going to go the cartoon way. It will also bring in tight racing and hopefully bring up more overtaking opportunities. 

There is a testing ban during the season which means teams won't be allowed to do any kind of testing after Melbourne until mid December. This is a move that is aimed at reducing costs and help prevent financially sound teams from splurging on testing while helping other teams to not worry about not having the money to conduct such testing. A hugely unpopular rule that was in force last year was about pitting when the safety car was on track. Imagine a car that was dangerously low on fuel and was on it's way to pit when a on track incident forced the safety car to come in. The pit lane would be closed and if this car enters the pit to refuel a penalty would be served (either a 10 second stop/go penalty or a drive-thru pit penalty). This year this rule has been withdrawn and the pit lane would remain open. To keep an eye on drivers who rush into the pits to take unfair advantage a new system will be employed which will calculate the time a car needs to take to get to the pits, if any driver arrives sooner he'll invite a penalty.

Some of these rules are aimed at helping F1 develop technologies that can be used on road cars but environmentalists will be disappointed that nothing has been introduced to help the sport take a greener turn. The cars look odd, last year's cars were stunningly beautiful while this year's are a little sore to see. The team line up is almost the same as last year the only change being in Honda Racing. This has been rechristened Brawn GP and the legendary Ross Brawn has invested his money to save this team after Honda withdrew from F1. Mercedes Benz has been allowed to supply engines to the Brackley outfit and it will be interesting to see Ross Brawn use his team and resources working with a Mercedes engine, using a Ferrari engine would have been a natural choice but it remains a mystery as to why he couldn't secure an engine deal with Ferrari. 

Force India wasn't anything to speak about last year and during the end the termination of some high profile personnel got it in the news. Vijay Mallya knows to work the media to his advantage. With McLaren electronics & gearbox and Mercedes Benz engines this team might be the dark horse this year. Who can forget Simon Roberts and the role he played in McLaren? He's taken up the role of the COO in Force India and prior to this assignment he was Operations Director in McLaren. Simon joined McLaren in 2003 as General Manager and was responsible then for for coordinating the manufacture and assembly processes, I.T., transport and logistics, quality, vehicle technology laboratories and human resources. If only the team prinicipal can concentrate on actual racing, instead of strutting pretty women (girls) on the grid week after week, this year could be a windfall year for this team with an Indian name.

All of the team predictably are holding all their cards close to the chest and rightly so. Red Bull appears to have gotten a lot of mileage and Mark Webber's recovery is well on track. Renault have been doing very well in testing, Alonso topped the time sheets this week. BMW have been the 'let your work do your talking' type and one can be sure that they are doing very good progress. McLaren should have a lot to worry about and this year's focus would be to get both the driver's and constructor's titles back to Woking. Ron Dennis has stepped down from the role of Team Prinicipal and Martin Whitmarsh (Marty) has stepped in his place. I expect Ron to show up at all races, this man got divorced last year and it can't get any worse than that.

One can expect Norbert Haug (Head of Mercedes Benz Sporting) to hang around in Force India & Brawn Racing's garage give that engine partnership he shares with this team. Abu Dhabi makes it's presence on the F1 calendar this year, Canada is absent with which F1 does not travel to North America at all. Remember previously we had a race in Montreal and in Indianapolis which lost their places in the last two years. Everytime I start writing about F1 I try to be brief but brevity is not my forte. This season promises a lot but can it deliver? Let's see how it all pans out, over to Melbourne.