Force India undecided on second driver

It’s official. Force India will go into the first pre-season test at Jerez with only one driver.
That means Paul Di Resta will have to take bulk of the responsibility to put VJM06, launched at Silverstone on Friday, through its paces during the four-day test session starting February 4.

“Probably after Jerez,” deputy team principal Bob Fernley told DNA from Silverstone when he was quizzed about Di Resta’s partner.

Former Force India driver Adrian Sutil and last year’s reserve driver Jules Bianchi have both been linked to the vacant seat but the team is in no rush to make a decision.

“The shareholders will make their decision in due course. We know who is on the shortlist. We are trying to put together the programmes that are going to really take the team through a longer period than just one year,” Fernley said.

Fernley was of the opinion that having just one driver on board would not affect the test programme and that Di Resta can handle the responsibility.

“Most of the work we do in Jerez are related to the systems, so we are quite comfortable running Paul. Paul is a major part of what we do. He gives us stability and his technical feedback is excellent. That is why it is quite important that we optimise Jerez with Paul as it is the first running. It will be easy for a new driver to pick up on it once those elements have been resolved,” Fernley said.

Team principal Vijay Mallya was impressed with the first look of the 2013 car. “The VJM06 doesn’t look massively different to its predecessor, but beneath the skin we’ve looked at every detail to try and find more performance. I’ve followed the development of the car closely and I’m proud of what we have achieved. The objective now is to make sure we build on the promise of last year and have a strong start to the season,” Mallya said in a statement.

Technical director Andrew Green revealed that the car has been built from the scratch and he was happy with the final product at their disposal.

“It’s a brand new car from the ground-up. We discussed carrying over big chunks of last year’s car but decided not to. The biggest change that everybody is going to notice this year is the fairing on top of the nose to hide the ‘step’. It’s neutral as far as the car’s performance is concerned but tidies up the flow over the top of the chassis.”