Q & A with Mike Gascoyne

Mike Gascoyne - Force India chief technical officer: I think there is a real reason now. A lot of people have never really managed it, and for the last few years this team has been stumbling around, with no investment, with no chance of doing anything but running at the back.

But I think it's possible to get to the front, if you have the right budget and the right level of commitment. I am very confident that in a year's time you will see this team significantly better. How far that can really go, as a small team, is a different question. But it is possible to take this team, with the budget that we've now got, to go and get the odd podium.

Q. Is it going to remain a small team?

MG: You have to plan to grow sensibly, because you can't just throw money at it. If we can improve into the midfield, picking up points, getting investors in because of that, and investing that money in the team, then I think you can grow sensibly and achieve podiums. But that's going to take you three or four years. You look at the teams like Ferrari and McLaren, who are going to be at the front again this year, they build on their stability, and they can keep ahead of the game.

Teams launch cars and say they have radical new concepts, but I don't see them going any quicker. Is it not just about doing the basics well? People believe that there is a holy grail in F1, but teams like Ferrari just re-optimise everything and they get to a better solution.

I think you can only ever catch up by getting your heads down and starting that process, which is what Williams have done, and it's what we are going through now. We've got a wind-tunnel programme now to match anyone, but we can't deny that we are two seconds a lap behind at the moment. It's the people that try to take shortcuts that never make it. It's lovely to think that there is a big step out there, but if it was that easy we would have all thought of it by now.

Q. Is there pressure on you to get an Indian driver in?

MG: I think Vijay is very right when he says our drivers need to fulfil a role, and if there isn't an Indian driver that fills that, then we'll just take drivers that do fit that role. Having said that, a test driver that's Indian could be a huge positive for the team. If you look in GP2, Karun Chandhok won his first race last year, and should have won a couple. I've met him and he's a very nice, intelligent young man.

I could see a role for someone like that, but I think Vijay is very realistic. You've got to balance one pressure against another. Yes, we'd probably get more exposure in India with an Indian driver, but if we did that, would we make as much progress as a team, and if we don't make as much progress would that just be seen an own goal anyway.

If the team moves forward, and we're racing for points, and then you can put an Indian driver in, maybe that's more credible. It's a tough call, but I think you are better off putting the experienced drivers in, making progress, showing that your team is moving forward, and then taking the right Indian driver when they are good enough.

Q. Was it important for you to get someone like Fisichella in to lead the team?

MG: It was very important. Adrian (Sutil) had some great races last year at places he knew well like Spa and Fuji, but at other races he struggled. If you are a rookie at the team, no matter how good you are, if your teammate is even more of a rookie, and maybe not as good anyway, from an engineering point of view it's difficult to know if you're going in the right direction because you've got no baseline.

The one thing about having Giancarlo in the team is there's an immediate baseline from day one. You know that if there's a problem, it's a real problem. I think Adrian will benefit enormously from that. I think at the start of the year it will be a struggle to keep up, but hopefully by the end of the year, he would be expecting to beat his teammate, because that's what any young driver should be thinking. I think the whole team will operate at a much higher level because of that.

That's no disrespect to Adrian. Anyone can say Lewis (Hamilton) did a tremendous job at McLaren last year, and he did, but he had Fernando (Alonso) as a baseline to work from. If it had been Lewis and Sakon Yamamoto, do we think Lewis would have won as many races as he did?

Probably not. I think Ferrari are going to win the championship this year. Heikki (Kovalainen) is obviously going to be good, but having two guys in their second season against Raikkonen and Massa is not the same as having Fernando and Lewis. They took a risk with Lewis and he rose to the occasion, but it's not the same having two younger guys, and I think McLaren will suffer because of that.

Q. Has Giancarlo made much of an impact already?

MG: Definitely. From our level of competitiveness at the winter testing, we clearly looked better than we did last year. Not just Giancarlo, but all the drivers we tested, it's great for engineers to have experienced drivers, who have been in other cars, because they can very quickly hone in on the areas that don't feel right.

You get a tremendous amount of feedback, and to be able to do that with six or seven drivers was actually really good fun. Giancarlo is bringing a level of experience that is making a difference, but I think our ability to set the car up has made a difference as well. I think it has made us take a step forward.

Giancarlo doesn't quite know why we looked so bad last year, because he doesn't think the car is that bad. He's certainly expecting to surprise some people. He's basically been driving the car as it was at the end of last year, but we've got some significant updates to come. The car will mechanically be the basis of the B-spec we ran at the end of last year. But that will be with a full new aero package plus mechanical updates. That will run in Barcelona.

Q. Aside from budgets, what are the differences between a team like this and a manufacturer team? Can a team like this compete providing it has the budget?

MG: I think it can. There are differences, the first thing is the engine. The 10-year freeze will help us massively. Basically, all the engines now are within 5-10 horsepower of each other. Even when you had a customer works engine, you'd still have 500 less revs, 20-30 less horsepower. You'd have old-spec bits, and you'd never get the same level of performance.

Now you do, because it's more difficult to have a different spec engine. When there was full-blown engine development, you could never compete as a small team. Now that's gone, so I think with the right budget, in a small team, you lose some of the bureaucracy, the corporate-ness of some teams, you can react quicker, so I think you can compete.

Q. How much has the budget changed for this year?

MG: I think the figures Vijay gave at the driver launch were $60 million for last year, compared to $120 million this year. With $60 million, all you could do is just exist. We've already brought in some people like Mark Smith, and that will continue, there will be more announcements.

We started the year with 240 people, and I think the end of this year we will be about 300. We're expanding in every area. And of course, if budget caps come in that's great for us, because it brings everyone back to us. We won't be spending over it.