By Umar Hassan
Motorsport Correspondent
Well after the success of 2012 with the VJM05, you would think that Force India would have made great strides towards the 2013 F1 season. Guess what, they have and in a big way have gone up as the leading midfield team to challenging the likes of McLaren, who have been struggling to find the pace this season since the departure of Lewis Hamilton to Mercedes who has taken his 4th Hungarian GP victory and his first for Mercedes, equalling the great Michael Schumacher’s record of 4 wins at the Hungaroring. Not only that, Hamilton with Schumacher are the only drivers in Hungarian GP history to win with two different teams.
Force India’s 1st half of the season started with a bang with Adrian Sutil, who was out of F1 for 18months for grievous bodily harm, came back in style in Melbourne and was leading the race before the Pirelli softs sent Sutil back down the grid behind Di Resta in 7th. Malaysia was a different story with both Di Resta and Sutil retiring with disastrous pit stops. China wasn’t bright for Sutil as he had his 2nd retirement in 3 races since returning to Formula 1.
Whilst on the other hand, Paul Di Resta hauled himself into the points in 8th. Bahrain fared much better for Di Resta who was on the verge of a podium finish, eventually had to settle for 4th much to the delight of the Scot. Spain threw up mixed fortunes as Sutil finished in the same position as Bahrain in 13th while Di Resta bagged more points for the Silverstone-based team in 7th. Followed up with races in Monaco, Canada and Britain, the star performer in those races was indeed Paul Di Resta who managed to hurl himself up from the back of the grid in difficult circumstances to finish in credible points positions along with Sutil as well showing Di Resta’s worth as a man that’s targeted for a possible seat with Ferrari or with other teams in 2014.
But Germany and Hungary weren’t plain sailing as the tyre changes by Pirelli were not in the favour of Force India who were back in the midfield after 2 disastrous qualifying sessions along with the races itself. You would have to wonder if the new Pirelli tyres played its part in sending Force India back in the midfield.
So a great start by Force India in the 2013 F1 season, they are well and truly a force to be reckoned with after leading the legendary McLaren team by a slender 2pts as we go into the 2nd half of an already compelling 2013 season which comes to a track that Force India are successful at, Spa. Could Force India bounce back after the summer break? Only time will tell.
