Changes behind the scenes at Force India

The Force India team has yet to decide who will drive its cars, but behind the scenes the team has made some changes to the engineering management.

Dominic Harlow becomes Head of Circuit Engineering, a role which is similar in scope to that of Pat Fry in the new Ferrari set-up. In addition to his role in charge of engineering operations at the races, he takes an overview role on the design and development side. Meanwhile Andy Green moves into the technical director's chair, replacing Mark Smith, who will soon leave the team to join his mentor Mike Gascoyne at Lotus. Smith had taken the TD role on from James Key, who left Force India for Sauber last Spring.

One of the first decisions of the new management team was to take the 2010 car to the first test in Valencia on February 1 and delay the launch of the new car to the second test at Jerez. The thinking behind this is to give the new car longer in the wind tunnel but also to get some solid data on the latest Pirelli tyres using a well sorted reliable car, which will be able to cover a high mileage. Pirelli is bringing a wide range of tyres to the test, rather than the four basic compounds Bridgestone brought last year, so there is much to be gained from running lots of laps and collecting data.

Force India used a similar tactic last season and it paid off for them, as they scored 43 points in the first ten races. "It works for us," said Harlow. "If you look at last year we are quick from concept to reality because of our size we can gain a good chunk of time by developing early in the year."

Inevitably the better funded teams outdevelop them as the year goes on because their resources stretch to racing and developing at the same time.

There is also another benefit in that with many teams launching on January 31st, the smaller teams get drowned out and don't get much airplay. By launching later there will be more attention on the car.