Force India announce technical partnership with McLaren

Indian owned F1 team Force India, owned by Dr Vijay Mallya had just announced a landmark deal with Mclaren Mercedes F1 team. Force India will use Mercedes-Benz engines and McLaren gearboxes from next season following the confirmation of a new technical partnership. It comes after last week’s news that Ferrari had agreed to end their engine supply deal with the team a year early. This is clearly a very good opportunity as Mclaren have returned to the top in the last couple of years, which proves their trechnical worth.

Force India’s 2009 car, the VJM02, will run engines supplied by Mercedes-Benz HighPerformanceEngines, the first time Mercedes has supplied a chassis constructor other than McLaren.

Its V10 will be mated to McLaren Racing gearboxes and hydraulic systems supplied by McLaren Applied Technologies, who will also provide Force India with operational support and a kinetic energy recovery system (KERS) currently being developed by McLaren and Mercedes. Additionally, Force India will have access to the McLaren Group's network of bespoke suppliers.

Read on for more information

“We are absolutely delighted,” said Dr Vijay Mallya, chairman and managing director of Force India “McLaren and Mercedes-Benz are two of the most famous names in motorsport history, having achieved great success in Grand Prix racing over many years, and most recently, a superb victory in probably the most dramatic world championship Formula One has seen.”

In conjunction with aerospace company EADS, Force India also announced that they will soon be expanding the computational fluid dynamics capability of their Brackley Aero Centre facility. “These new resources and developments will provide an enormous boost to our technical armoury and, as a result, we have high hopes of making good progress in 2009 and beyond,” added Mallya.

“Force India Formula One Team has been in existence for only one year, and inevitably our first season has constituted a learning period. But we said at the outset that we meant business and were not interested in merely making up the numbers. “The announcement of our new technical partnership, combined with the new developments and resources outlined above, clearly underlines that we meant what we said. I would like personally to thank Bernie Ecclestone and FIA president Max Mosley, both of whom offered their assistance and support throughout the gestation of this deal.”

Also announced was the appointment of Simon Roberts, formerly McLaren's racing operations director, as Force India's new Chief Operating Officer.

IAB

Source : F1.com