In January 2008, Dr. Vijay Mallya bought a majority stake in the (then) languishing Spyker Formula 1 team, and renamed it Force India F1. His critics said he was in over his head. But, in true Vijay Mallya fashion, he proved them wrong and began truly turning the team around. His work is nowhere near done, however. So, let’s see how the VJM racers actually come to life. Here’s an inside look at the Force India factory.

Force India F1 is housed in an innocuous building amidst the green fields of Northamptonshire. Let’s just say that if it weren’t for the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit – the home of the British GP – literally across the street, you’d be hard pressed to imagine that some of the fastest cars on the planet are developed and built within this two-story structure. I paid them a visit during the season last year to see just what goes on behind the scenes.

What you see during a race is just a fraction of what goes into building and running a Formula 1 race team. F1 requires massive investment, massive teams, and massive dedication to get the show on the road race-weekend after race-weekend.

It all starts over the winter break. A new car comes to life first as a full-size scale model of the race car. The team uses rapid prototyping as a quick and easy way of making sure that all the new parts fit together without any basic design problems – thus saving both time and money if they do actually encounter a problem. It’s not exactly as straightforward as piecing together a LEGO F1 racer however – as parts are fabricated as and when the designs are completed. After all, development has become the name of the game in F1, and it’s a constant not only during winter testing, but during the course of the season as well. While one car is being tested, new parts are always under development, and the second car is built simultaneously.

I was at the factory in the middle of last season, and Michael Gomme – who’s been with the team for over a decade, which means he’s seen them through a lot of ups and downs – explained that they try and have at least two to three new parts on the car for every race. Naturally, the majority of development over the course of the season is in aerodynamics. In fact, there was a time after Dr. Mallya took charge of Force India that he had three different wind tunnels running simultaneously around the clock. Even in mid season, their own wind tunnel, which is just down the road from the factory, was running 24 hours a day – with two teams, one working on the 2010 contender, and the other on the 2011 car.

Naturally, because of the rate of development in F1, any innovation – or competitive advantage – is guarded with the same level of secrecy as Coca Cola uses to keep the recipe of Coke under wraps. And this meant that I wasn’t allowed to shoot much of what I saw, right from the pre-season model to numerous parts of the current race car – especially aerodynamic parts like the blown diffuser, but also even more basic components like the engine and gearbox. Even an innocuous component like a driver’s headrest is intriguing. Since it’s made of carbon fibre, it’s incredibly light, and yet it’s strong enough to protect a driver in the event of a crash. Or take other components that you would never think to consider, such as the wiring harness. A Force India F1 car has 80 sensors on it, and that doesn’t even include the engine. Yet, the main wiring loom weighs only 3 kilos – but they’re nevertheless looking for ways to make it lighter still by optimizing the routing through the harness.

Another aspect that’s hard to get your head around is the logistics involved in the world of F1. Having seen the extremely elaborate and very lavish Force India motor home in the paddock, I can only imagine the logistical nightmare that goes into running an F1 team. Michael assures me, however, that the motor home is outsourced to an external agency. That apart, Force India take five trucks to each race – and bear in mind that each of the two-story trucks are a million pounds apiece.

A race weekend in Europe would mean that the trucks would be back at the factory by mid-week. The cars would then get stripped completely, the various parts would get sent to their respective departments – where each part would be checked, serviced, and repainted – and the cars would get built up again to leave for the next race weekend. Assuming two weeks between races, the team gets only 4-5 days to turn everything around and send the trucks out again. If they’re dealing with a double-header – races on back-to-back weekends – the teams would go straight to the circuit, and perform every single action trackside as if they were back at the factory. It’s the same at fly-away races – where they have 25 tonnes of freight no less. In fact, it takes them three days just to build the garage before they can get the race cars out. And after the Grand Prix, it’s another race against time, as they’re usually working well into the wee hours of the morning to get everything packed once again. Suffice to say, there are a lot of long hours, lots of determination, and lots of coordination that people don’t see and appreciate.





And whether at the factory or at the racetrack, the attention to detail borders on the extreme – which is easy to understand, I suppose, when you spend millions simply to achieve a few tenths of a second a lap. Take, for instance, the pit stops. They practice constantly not only at the race circuit but also back at base. And that means the mechanics can change a front wing assembly, which itself costs 24,000 Pounds (18 Lakhs), in just 8 seconds. And since a pit stop involves 20 mechanics, each with a very specific task to perform, they even choreograph how to leave the garage. In fact, pit stops are so crucial that they practice 30 times a day at the track to make sure that it becomes second nature, and they get it absolutely right on race-day.

This attention to detail runs through every department at Force India. Every single part that goes onto the race car has to first make its way through the inspection department, or quality control. Even if a part has a hairline crack in it, it would be scrapped immediately – or taken out of the system as Michael put it. Each part, over the course of its life, will actually get crack checked several times. That part will also have a certain shelf life, so every time the car does a lap, each component has to be updated to reflect just how many kilometers it’s done.

The team makes a number of the carbon components in house. Carbon fibre, as you may know, starts life as a roll of fabric. It then gets impregnated with resin, put in a mould, and then in a vacuum bag, which is thereafter cooked in an autoclave under pressure. The solid part will then be sent to a trim shop where they manually smooth out the rough edges. A floor, for instance, which would be built in different pieces, would be in the oven for about 10 hours in total – and then in the trim shop for as long as a week.



A look inside the factory shows you just how important the human resource is in an F1 team. It’s not all wind tunnels and computer imagery. There’s actually a lot of craftsmanship that goes into building an F1 car. For instance, there’s a fabrication room where they build parts like radiators. It’s much like a metal shop you’d find anywhere else, with music in the background and guys taking jibes at one another. Except, these guys build some of the most sophisticated, precise, and expensive radiators ever made.

The computer wizardry and space age aerodynamics apart, it’s really the human element that makes a Formula 1 team – right from the driver who puts it all on the line, to the mechanics who give up a lot of sleep for much of the year, to the team boss who has to motivate and strategise. And it’s only when you get this vital element right that you can perform on race day. And after years of strife, in its many guises, it appears that Force India has finally got this vital element in place.

The mindset of the team is very practical – they’re looking ahead and not dwelling on the past. Dr. Mallya has set high, but achievable, goals – and provided a framework within which to achieve them. Adrian Sutil has grown into his role as team leader, and a lot will be expected of him in 2011.

Force India veteran, Michael Gomme, tells me if you want to win, you have to be dedicated and motivated – which they are. There’s a resolute confidence in his voice when he says, “We’ll get there. It just takes time.”