Force India owner Vijay Mallya announces line up of drivers for 2012 season – Formula 1 news
Force India announced their line-up for the 2012 Formula 1 season naming and retaining Paul di Resta while replacing Adrian Sutil with Nico Hulkenberg.
Adrian Sutil had been with Force India since it debuted four years ago. Vijay Mallya thanked Sutil for his performances and hard work put in to make Force India as successful as it is currently. Vijay Mallya announced the names of the line up a day later
than the deadline and just as it was speculated earlier Hulkenberg replaced Sutil and di Resta retained his spot.
Di Resta had been closely involved with the development of Force India’s new car for the 2012 season and had been doing a lot of simulation work as well. Although di Resta did not confirm that he is going to be a part of Force India for the 2012 season and
said that nothing has been confirmed yet, he is waiting for Vijay Mallya and other board members to decide on the driver line-up and hoped that he would be retained.
“I am delighted to present our line-up for the 2012 season. In Paul and Nico we have two extremely talented drivers with tremendous potential,” Mallya said.
“I think Paul caught the eye of everybody in the pit lane during his rookie season. His speed, maturity and race craft confirmed that we were right to believe in him and we look forward to working with him again next year. As for Nico, we identified him
as a rising star at the end of 2010 and chose to evaluate him during the course of this season,” he further added.
Force India have been on the up since it came into Formula 1, improving with each season. In 2010, they came in sixth in the constructors’ championship, and bettered that performance in 2011 placing fifth in 2011.
It would be interesting to see how they perform in 2012, with an improved car, addition of Hulkenberg to the team and a better financial standing with Sahara India’s backing. The team will definitely be worth watching on the grid as they target to even higher
than the fifth place finish they achieved in 2011.
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