Force India Not Affected by Banned Outboard Mirrors

While some drivers admitted that the new mirror-related ban imposed by the International Automobile Federation (FIA) will affect the aerodynamic performances of their single-seaters, Force India's Vitantonio Liuzzi doesn't seem too bothered about it. The Silverstone based team is one of the outfits that currently employs outboard mirrors for their 2010 challenger, a device that will be ruled as illegal starting the Spanish Grand Prix in early May.

Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel was the first one to stress the importance of changing the design of the RB6's mirrors in the next few weeks, insisting that the team has to find a way to compensate the loss of performance resulting from that change.

Liuzzi, however, insisted that the VJM03 will not suffer a great deal from the mirror change – ruled against by the FIA because of visibility issues pointed out by the drivers after the Australian Grand Prix – and hinted that his team is likely to debut a revised mirror design from as early as Chine, rather than wait for the Spanish race.

“We've done some studies on the aerodynamic side and for us we can't see any serious downside to moving them closer to the driver. We are quite confident that it will affect some other teams though, because in the past there has been a significant gain in putting them out there on certain cars,” said the Italian racer in a short interview with ESPNF1.

“But like I said, we are confident and it's possible we will have changed them even for the next race in Shanghai,” added the Force India driver.

This will be the second change Force India Mercedes will have to proceed to in terms of car design after only 3 races this season, following the FIA telling the Indian outfit – together with McLaren, Renault and Mercedes GP – to alter the design of their rear diffuser. As far as the outboard mirrors are concerned, other teams that currently employ that design are Red Bull and Ferrari.