Force India don’t expect a repeat of their disastrous Malaysian Grand Prix weekend which saw both cars retire on safety grounds after the team experienced problems with its wheelnuts.
The Silverstone-based outfit trialled a new captive wheelnut system for the race which is supposed to speed up the process of changing a wheel as the nut is incorporated into the rim.
However three lengthy stops lasting more than a minute each and fears the nuts hadn’t tightened properly led to the team voluntarily retiring both Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta from the race.
Team principal Vijay Mallya is confident they have solved the problems and expects a good weekend in China.
“Even though the last race in Malaysia was very disappointing, I know we have the potential to bounce back quickly and get a good result in Shanghai,” he said.
“Throughout the Sepang weekend, we had a quick car and the drivers felt good about their chances.
“We were confident of bringing both cars home in the points until the wheelnut issue let us down. We’ve had three weeks to understand what went wrong and have worked hard fix the root cause of the problem.”
He is hoping the next two races will bring a clearer picture as to where Force India and their rivals stand.
“The next two weekends, with races in China and Bahrain, will put us in a position to see where we really stand in comparison with our rivals.”
