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Force India Aims to Become 5th Best Team in F1 in 2010

Most F1 pundits would agree that this year's Formula One championship will see 4 teams battling for the championship crown: McLaren Mercedes, Mercedes GP, Ferrari and Red Bull Racing. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out, especially since each of those teams has at least one title-contending racer in its lineup.

Taking all of that into account, Force India set a quite bold goal for the season to come, namely finishing the upcoming campaign as the 5th best team in Formula One. That would mean the Silverstone based outfit would have to pass teams like Williams F1, Renault, Sauber F1 and Toro Rosso, not to mention the new teams entering the series in 2010.

Team co-owner Vijay Mallya's aim is based on his outfit's impressive performance in 2009, when Force India scored their first pole position and podium (at Spa) in Formula One. With the VJM03 being a logical progression of the VJM02 last year, the Indian outfit targets an improvement for the new season.

In the world championship, if we're fifth or six - above the median – that would be a successful season. We finished ninth last year, if we can move up another three or four positions, we're on the right track,” admitted the team's CEO Otmar Szafnauer.

We tried over the winter to enhance the places where we were deficient last year without losing the places we were very good. Can we repeat it? That's very much dependent on what our competition does. However, we did focus on not losing the aero efficiency that we had so there is every possibility that we will be strong on those circuits,” added the Romanian-born official.

During the last 4-day testing session at Jerez, Force India scored the 5th best time of the week, through German driver Adrian Sutil.
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