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Force India, Lotus lock horns over tech head
Source: Agencies |
June 9, 2010, Wednesday
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FORCE India has told rival Lotus that it faces a long wait before technical head Mark Smith can join the Formula One newcomers.
Malaysian-owned Lotus announced last week that it had appointed Smith as technical director, reporting to overall engineering head Mike Gascoyne, once he had served out his Force India notice period.
The team added that it had also recruited chief designer Lewis Butler and aerodynamics head Marianne Hinson from Force India.
Force India owner and team principal Vijay Mallya said in a team preview for Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal that Smith would be staying until after the start of next season.
"Our technical team, despite reports, is still very much intact," Mallya said.
"Mark will stay with us until April 2011 and we will, in due course, announce a structure that will take us to the next level of performance. I'm very comfortable with where we are as a team and where we are going."
Legal dispute
Force India, which previously employed Gascoyne, and Lotus are already embroiled in a legal dispute over development of the latter's 2010 car in an Italian wind tunnel.
Mallya said the off-track disputes would not distract Force India, currently sixth of the 12 teams and 41 points behind fifth placed Renault, from its challenge to move up the Formula One grid.
"We are fully focused on the task in hand, which is to score as many points as we can and to regain that fifth position in the championship," he said.
"We're not so far away from Renault and there are plenty of opportunities left to rack points up and some circuits that we should really fly on, including Montreal.
"Any actions we're taking away from the track won't affect the team's focus on sealing our most successful season to date."
Meanwhile, Force India driver Vitantonio Liuzzi will start Canadian race with a different chassis after struggling to score points in recent races.
"The last few races have been pretty tough as we've been struggling with a general lack of grip that makes it hard for me to give the maximum," the Italian said.
"Monaco was OK and I thought we had solved the issues so it was quite frustrating in Turkey that I couldn't make the most of our new development items.
"We've put in some long hours at the factory and found some minor damage on the chassis that we picked up in Monaco.
"We thought we had fixed it but as a precaution we are switching back to the chassis I used in the first four races," Liuzzi said.
Malaysian-owned Lotus announced last week that it had appointed Smith as technical director, reporting to overall engineering head Mike Gascoyne, once he had served out his Force India notice period.
The team added that it had also recruited chief designer Lewis Butler and aerodynamics head Marianne Hinson from Force India.
Force India owner and team principal Vijay Mallya said in a team preview for Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal that Smith would be staying until after the start of next season.
"Our technical team, despite reports, is still very much intact," Mallya said.
"Mark will stay with us until April 2011 and we will, in due course, announce a structure that will take us to the next level of performance. I'm very comfortable with where we are as a team and where we are going."
Legal dispute
Force India, which previously employed Gascoyne, and Lotus are already embroiled in a legal dispute over development of the latter's 2010 car in an Italian wind tunnel.
Mallya said the off-track disputes would not distract Force India, currently sixth of the 12 teams and 41 points behind fifth placed Renault, from its challenge to move up the Formula One grid.
"We are fully focused on the task in hand, which is to score as many points as we can and to regain that fifth position in the championship," he said.
"We're not so far away from Renault and there are plenty of opportunities left to rack points up and some circuits that we should really fly on, including Montreal.
"Any actions we're taking away from the track won't affect the team's focus on sealing our most successful season to date."
Meanwhile, Force India driver Vitantonio Liuzzi will start Canadian race with a different chassis after struggling to score points in recent races.
"The last few races have been pretty tough as we've been struggling with a general lack of grip that makes it hard for me to give the maximum," the Italian said.
"Monaco was OK and I thought we had solved the issues so it was quite frustrating in Turkey that I couldn't make the most of our new development items.
"We've put in some long hours at the factory and found some minor damage on the chassis that we picked up in Monaco.
"We thought we had fixed it but as a precaution we are switching back to the chassis I used in the first four races," Liuzzi said.
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