Vijay Mallya made an appearance at the launch of Force India’s 2017 car today, and he wasn’t pulling any punches about the team’s optimism for the coming season. Sergio Pérez and Esteban Ocon were on hand to pull the covers off the VJM10 during the launch at Silverstone, revealing a car with a similar paint scheme to last year, the now expected shark fin, the lower rear wing, and an unsightly bump at the front of the car leading down to the nose.
However, most of the attention was on a war of words between Mallya and Renault’s boss, with Vijay saying: “I read an article this morning that Cyril Abiteboul of Renault said that poor teams such as Force India were going to suffer in this arms race. Well, good luck to him. He might have to eat his words. It’s not the amount of arms you have, it’s the quality of your weaponry.”
The team finished fourth in the 2016 championship but they’re aiming big again this year, Mallya adds: “We will always dream big, we have never ever had conversations, even in private, that we are not going to break into the top three. That is certainly going to be our objective, we will give it our best shot.”
Filed under F1Minute
References Cyril Abiteboul, Esteban Ocon, Sergio Pérez, Vijay Mallya
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