Force India launches 2011 Challenger

Force India presented their 2011 Formula One car, the VJM04, in a simple online launch on Tuesday. They completed their first winter testing session in Valencia (Spain) last week with the old car.

The engine has been sourced from Mercedes Benz and is a 2.4-litre, V8 engine. The Kinetic Energy Recovery System is also from Mercedes Benz, while the seven-speed transmission is from McLaren.

The VJM04 is the first machine created by team's new technical director Andrew Green, who has also worked on the legendary Jordan 191 car in the past.

"Everything is different, but visually a lot of it is subtle," Green said. "There are a lot of differences under the skin."

For the 2011 season, double diffusers and F-ducts, that gave a lot of downforce at the rear of the car, have been banned. That would have posed a lot of challenges to the engineers to design the car. But Force India believe they have done a fair job.

"We've recovered a lot of aerodynamic performance, we believe. We still have a little bit to go, but we are still in the process of the realignment after the end of last season because it does take a long time to move aerodynamically from one position to another."

With the tyres available to teams changed from Bridgestone to Pirelli, getting the best out of the new tyres would be another challenge.