Buzzin F1 – Formula One Blog

Force India 2008

Last week it was reported that the Force India team had ended their contract with Ferrari, which agreed to the supply of engines from 2007 and continuing through 2009.

A statement read;

“Ferrari announces that it has agreed with Force India Formula One Team to end the technical collaboration agreement between the two teams ahead of schedule.”

The Force India team has now confirmed a technical partnership with McLaren and Mercedes, and Vijay Mallya, the team boss of Force India said,

“We are absolutely delighted to be able to announce a technical partnership with McLaren Applied Technologies and Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines, and also our plan to expand the composite manufacturing capability and drawing office within our Silverstone facility.

McLaren and Mercedes-Benz are two of the most famous names in motorsport history, having achieved great success in Grand Prix racing over many years.  These new resources and developments will provide an enormous boost to our technical armoury and, as a result, we have high hopes of making good progress in 2009 and beyond.

Force India Formula One Team has been in existence for only one year, and inevitably our first season has constituted a learning period.  But we said at the outset that we meant business and were not interested in merely making up the numbers.

The announcement of our new technical partnership, combined with the new developments and resources clearly underlines that we meant what we said.  I would personally like to thank Bernie Ecclestone and FIA president Max Mosley, both of whom offered their assistance and support throughout the gestation of this deal.”

The VJM02 car, will therefore be powered by the Mercedes engine which will also include the KERS system, plus a McLaren gearbox and hydraulic systems.

The deal which is for the next five years, will be the first time that Mercedes has supplied another team for almost fifteen years, when it was supplied to the Sauber team back in 1995.