Force India chief operating officer Otmar Szafnauer has told reporters the team is financially stable enough to pay its bills and continue the development of the 2016 VJM09 despite rumours the team has financial troubles.
These rumours began following claims Force India team principal Vijay Mallya had absconded from India whilst owing $1 billion in debt relating to his failed Kingfisher airline venture. Despite this Mallya has stayed fully committed to the team and last week he took to twitter to blast these claims in a series of furious tweets.
As well as the financial troubles surrounding Vijay Mallya, Force India co-owner Roy Sahara has his own financial troubles and he is currently serving jail time in India for what the government says were financial irregularities.
After the constant rumours surrounding the teams immediate future, Otmar Szafnauer spoke to Autosport in an attempt to dispel any further rumours: “We’re a Formula 1 team, you always want more money.”
“But we will definitely be funded to a level where we can pay our bills, and do the development programmes we have planned, and really that’s what it’s about.
“We recently signed a long-term deal with Smirnoff, which will help, and the FOM [Formula One Management] monies will underpin the finances of this team.
“All the other sponsors we are either expanding, adding to, or re-signing them, and that will only help.”
The team is likely to be under further financial pressure due to the major rules and regulation changes scheduled for 2017, the new regulations mean cars will be significantly different forcing Force India to make a choice at some point whether they continue developing the VJM09 or they focus on 2017 as they will not have the funds for both.
“We have to carefully plan so that we don’t underachieve this year to overachieve next year,” added Szafnauer.
“If we stop too early then maybe we will cut short our potential in 2016, at the benefit of 2017, or vice versa.
“If we stick with developing 2016 too long then it will be at the expense of how we start 2017, so we have to find that balance.
“With us it’s more important than with some of the bigger teams that can run experiments in parallel because they have the resources.”
