It’s easy to forget that Force India started off the 2017 season on the back foot. The car was considerably overweight and generally outclassed in a tight midfield battle.
However both drivers kept their noses clean and the team managed to come away with more points than perhaps they truly deserved as others faulted around them.
Since then, the VJM10 has become a regular points scorer on merit. A recent upgrade package has further propelled them away from the midfield and they have firmly established themselves as the fourth best team.
The first raft of updates arrived in Singapore (featuring the ‘hedge trimmer’ engine cover spine) and across Malaysia and Japan more significant components have appeared.
Back-to-back races are a great time to introduce large changes as it provides little time for the opposition to react. Revised bargeboards and a new diffuser (the third iteration of the season) were jetted in for Malaysia to bolster rear downforce levels.
For Japan further revisions were made to the rear aerodynamics, the simplistic single element monkey seat winglet replaced by a leant back two-element design accompanied by a pair of small fins stemming from the rear crash structure.
The winglet entrains the plume exiting the central exhaust outlet and forces the overall direction of the air upwards to produce more downforce, which you can see quite clearly in the image below. The two fins produce parallel-running vortices that likely prevent the plume from deviating too far from the car centreline as it is influenced by the winglet.
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