Force India CEO Otmar Szafnauer believes the Silverstone-based squad can be strong in all types of circuits this year, as the outfit aims to keep its momentum going after a promising end to 2009.
The Indian squad scored its first pole position and podium at the end of last season, and went on to score 13 points in its better championship to date. Szafnauer says the team's goal for 2010 was to continue with the upward trend, and so Force India has focused on making its car stronger for all types of circuits. Last year, its car was particularly strong on low-downforce tracks like Spa or Monza.
"I think at the end of last season there were a couple of things that helped," Szafnauer told AUTOSPORT. "One, some of the circuits did favor our car. However, there was also the fact that the aero updates that we were putting on the car all season long correlated very well to what the [wind] tunnel found and when we did come up with an update we saw it on the track.
"So, there's two things that happened. One, that the tracks favored us, but two, we made the car better as the year went on. Our goal over the winter was to continue that trend.
"One, not lose our strength on those circuits, but two, continue to put downforce in the car in an efficient manner so we'd be strong on the circuits we weren't so strong relative to the others. I think we achieved that.
"Both in Jerez and in Barcelona you need downforce, so I think they are good indicators of where we will be on average, and then when we get to those circuits that suit our car, I think we will be above average. That was our goal and we've gone a long way toward achieving that."
Szafnauer said the team will use the updates tested at Barcelona last week in Bahrain, and then will introduce new parts for the second race of the season in Melbourne.
"We ran in Barcelona what we are going to run in Bahrain, and then we have more updates for Australia, and then nothing for the rest of the flyaway races," he said.