See how an F1 team prepares for the British GP

View more images of Force India preparing at Silverstone

Final day

I’m at Silverstone for the third and final test day ahead of the British Grand Prix. The big guns are all present and even on a weekday thousands of fans have turned up to see McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton.

Ferrari have world champion Kimi Raikkonen, and Hamilton’s nemesis Fernando Alonso is in his Renault.

At the other end of the pit lane is Force India, F1’s newest team. The Silverstone-based outfit were one of the most popular in the days when they were Jordan. But they’ve often been at the back of the grid since Eddie Jordan sold them.

That’s all changing now. Indian businessman Vijay Mallya bought the outfit over the winter and gave the hard-working outfit the investment it deserved. Chief engineer Dominic Harlow is delighted with the progress.

He said: “Sometimes in the past it felt more like survival than moving forward but since we became Force India that’s become dramatically different.”

The effects are clear to see at this test. The design team have produced a raft of new parts for the team’s home race.

Crash

When I join the team on Thursday morning they’re keen to get working as quickly as possible. Wednesday’s running was halted when Giancarlo Fisichella hit a wall at lunch time and the afternoon was spent fixing the car instead of testing it.

Dominic explained what happened. He said: “There were very difficult windy conditions yesterday and we saw on the data a strong gust of wind caught him out.

“That meant the team were here fairly late last night fixing the car. But you expect to be here until midnight or 1am after a test ordinarily anyway stripping the car down.”

View more images of Force India preparing at Silverstone

Hot stuff

Sutil is at the wheel today and the team get him out on track as quickly as possible. He goes out in short bursts, completes a string of laps, then returns and reports back. Another change is made to the car, and off he goes again.

When the car arrives in the pits the team swarms around him. An F1 car is like a living creature – when it comes in hot from the track it needs cool air blowing into its radiators to keep the engine from overheating.

Its carbon-fibre brakes – which reach 1,000 degrees C on the track – need similar treatment. In the Canadian Grand Prix Sutil had to stop during the race and the unattended, white-hot brakes set fire to the surrounding bodywork.

After a few minutes in the pits the Ferrari V8 howls. Sutil guns his engine and warms up the tyres as he heads out for another stint.

Next time in the mechanics pounce on it as if this were a race, rapidly chaning tyres and adding fuel. But when they’re done instead of roaring out of the pits the car is turned off and wheeled back into the garage – it was just a test.

Dominic explains: “We’ve also been running pit stop simulations as we had a problem with one of our stops in France (the last race). We’re trying to retrace our steps to find out what if anything went wrong.” It’s not just the car that’s being tested today – it’s the team.

Sutil spins

With a few minutes left before the lunch break the team’s progress comes to a sudden halt. The car has stopped somewhere out on the track, and for a while no one is sure what’s happened.

Is it a problem with the car? Has the driver crashed?

Within a few minutes Sutil reappears in the back of a van, minus his car. He chats with his mechanics and explains what happened – the car got away from him and went into a gravel trap, but it's largely undamaged.

The VJM-01 returns on the back of a truck. It’s covered in a tarpaulin to keep its secret bits hidden from prying eyes, but as the damage is only superficial it’s not really needed.

However the team need to check the internals are undamaged so the car is wheeled into the pits, hoisted onto a rig and meticulously pulled apart. Wheels, bodywork, even the floor of the car are taken off – and the floor is taken outside for a vigorous shaking to remove all the gravel.

Later in the afternoon the car gets back on track and Sutil pronounces himself happy with the new parts.

He told the press: “There were a few bits that worked quite well and a few bits that needed to be tested a little bit more. Aerodynamic-wise I think we did a step. We had a new damper, which needs a bit more testing because there was a lot of under-steering (where the car won’t turn into the corner), but we really need the updates.

"I think we have about three tenths (of a second) with these updates. Let's see how much we can get out of it, but overall it was positive."

Three tenths of a second per lap might not sound like much, but in Formula 1 it can be a huge improvement. Force India aim to keep climbing their way up the grid, tenth by tenth.

View more images of Force India preparing at Silverstone

Watch the Force India 2008 launch below: