Force India to Replace Mark Smith with Andy Green

Force India will not hire someone from outside of their team to replace soon to be departed Mark Smith for their technical director position, but give Andy Green the opportunity to prove himself within the Force India organization.

As confirmed a few months back, Smith will leave the Silverstone-based outfit to join his former colleague Mike Gascoyne at Lotus F1 Racing. However, that switch will only be possible after the 2010 season will end, meaning current engineering director Green will have plenty of time to get used to his new role.

“When Mark leaves, which will probably be towards the end of this year/early next year, we have Andrew Green, who is going to take his place,” said Force India CEO Otmar Szafnauer, confirming a smooth transition between those two will be made in the upcoming few months.

“We've made some internal restructuring as well to take up the gap that James (Key) left, and all that will happen at the start of next year. We've got a good plan to overcome the fact that we had two of the key people leave.”

“Although he is not a big name, he has been around a long time, knows the team well and is a good competent designer/engineer - so the ideal man to lead the team in the right direction,” added the team CEO about Green, who has previously worked with Virgin Racing and Red Bull Racing in the past.