Hot off the heels of voting “no” on Marussia’s request to field a modified 2014 car to start the 2015 season, Force India now will bring it’s 2014 car to the second of three winter testing sessions this week.
The team missed the first test session in Jerez but will attend the second session in Barcelona with last year’s car while it focuses on getting the 2015 chassis ready for Australia in a month’s time. The team said:
“The new car is still expected to appear at the final test. The factory is very busy at the moment – everyone is pushing on with the manufacture of the parts and the car build process.”
“It will be very valuable for the tyre programme in terms of data collection there and I imagine there will be some test items as well,”
The team reckons they’ll gain valuable information about the 2015 tire compound from Pirelli based on using their old car and measuring the differences. That’s going to be interesting to see because Pirelli hinted at very little change for 2015 and this stable compound, which was accused of being conservative in 2014, could become aggressive in 2015 given the changes in the cars.
In short, Pirelli insinuated that the cars would change more than the rubber leaving room for the chassis evolution to make last year’s tires more aggressive. If that’s the case, I wonder what Force India will gain if they use the new tires and they are relatively the same as last year’s performance?
Force India are said to be pushing hard to get the new car ready for the final test in Barcelona but perhaps it may be no surprise if they wait until the first grand prix weekend in Australia for the debut given rumors of the financial strain the smaller teams are under.
Hat Tip: Sky Sports F1
