JAMES ROBERTS
“New team needs to win like Jordan did”
Twenty years ago this week, Eddie Jordan’s team scored an improbable 1-2 at a rain-hit Belgian Grand Prix. It was the first victory for his two bright yellow cars that somehow managed to miss the chaos of a 13-car opening lap shunt. Damon Hill took the shock win from his team-mate Ralf Schumacher – Jordan’s maiden win coming in its eighth season in F1.
At the end of 2004, Jordan sold up and the Silverstone-based team was taken over by the Russian-canadian businessman Alex Shnaider – and became Midland. His investment didn’t last long and a Dutch car company, Spyker, took over the operations of the team.
At the beginning of 2008, a new investor and new owner took over the Dadford Road outfit and Force India was born. Vijay Mallya, the man behind Kingfisher beer was at the helm.
He remained in charge until last weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix. In the 10 years he was in control, reaching the top step of the podium remained elusive. Funnily enough, the closest the team came was also at Spa in 2009.
Giancarlo Fisichella put his Force India on pole position and trailed Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari by less than a second at the chequered flag. Across the course of the next decade the team achieved just five more third place finishes – all of them scored by Sergio Perez.
But that chapter in the team’s turbulent history has come to a close.
The saviour is a consortium led by Lance Stroll’s father Lawrence, who has bought the assets to the team and saved the livelihoods of 400 staff. In a bit of legal wrangling, the team had to officially enter the series as a new entity to race at Spa.
On the eve of last weekend’s Belgian GP, Sahara Force India disappeared and Racing Point Force India F1 Team was born, entering the world championship, and forfeiting both the points Force India had scored up to this point (the drivers keep theirs) and prize money for the next two years.
That was just the first step in a process that will soon see Lawrence’s son Lance switch from Williams to the new entity. Despite failing to win, the small group at Silverstone, led by Otmar Szafnauner and utilising longterm employees such as technical director Andrew Green and team manager Andy Stevenson, have developed an excellent, efficient racing team, devoid of many of the corporate complexities that larger teams suffer from.
The team deserves its place on the grid and thankfully the new owners will ensure any doubts about its future are put to rest. Now it needs to achieve what Jordan managed, but Force India couldn’t: the top step of the podium.
Twelve was British F4’s lowest grid number in its current post-2015 guise