10/11/2008
NEWS STORY
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Following a major reshuffle, which sees the departure of Colin Kolles and Mike Gascoyne, and a deal which will see his team using McLaren Mercedes technology in 2009, Force India boss Vijay Mallya is targeting his outfit's first win in 2010.
Speaking at a special press conference at his team's Silverstone HQ today, Mallya said: "I think I can certainly aspire to winning races maybe in 2010. For 2009 I will be very happy if we are regularly in the points. That would already be a major step forward."
The former Jordan/Midland/Spyker outfit had just confirmed a new deal which will see it use the same power-plants, gearboxes and KERS systems being used by the McLaren team, however, McLaren's Martin Whitmarsh was keen to assure everyone that this does not mean that Force India will become the Woking outfit's 'B team'.
"This isn't a takeover by McLaren," he said. "I look forward to the day, and I will have a big smile, when we see Force India on the podium. Obviously I hope that we (McLaren) have two cars on the upper steps.
"We are in Formula One to compete," he continued, "and I would be disappointed if the management of Force India isn't looking forward to the day when they give McLaren a hard time on the track. If someone is going to beat us in the future, at the moment I'd rather it was a Force India than someone else."
Whitmarsh was keen to calm fears that the new deal might affect his own team's ambitions, McLaren having notoriously lost out in the past having taken their eye off the ball to focus on other projects.
"I believe we can bring business benefit to this organisation and I hope that we can learn some things, not just operationally," he said. "We are going to learn lessons by looking over the shoulder of Force India and take stock of some of the things we do.
"I believe we will become stronger as a consequence of this," he continued. "I would not have gone into this unless I believed it was going to help us win world championships in the future."