For many years now, Force India – or whatever it was called at the time – has begun the season pledging to break out of Q1 and start challenging for regular points.
Time and time again, the Silverstone-based squad has ended up disappointed as that breakthrough never came.
But in 2009, it finally happened.
Force India didn’t just qualify better and score, it came thrillingly close to winning a race on merit – taking one podium and challenging for more.
That all looked pretty unlikely in the first half of the year.
The change to a McLaren/Mercedes drivetrain was a step forward, but gave the small outfit a lot of work to do over the winter, and it was one of the last to launch its 2009 car.
Initially it was business as usual. Practice times flattered to deceive and drivers Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella remained in the bottom quarter of the grid.
And race-day opportunities continued to slide away from Force India too: Fisichella missed his pit stall while on course to score in Australia, and Sutil aquaplaned into the barriers and out of seventh late in the Chinese Grand Prix.
But there would be more chances to come, for the team was edging forward.
Both cars reached Q2 at last in Monaco, traditionally a stronghold for both drivers, and Fisichella would have been eighth had Sebastien Bourdais not slipped ahead at the start.
Then an upgrade package for Silverstone thrust the squad into top-10 contention – only for a brake failure to send Sutil into the barriers in Q1 and cause a red flag that ruined Fisichella’s chances too.
The Italian’s stunning race pace, which saw him chasing Toyotas and Ferraris on the way to 10th, showed what might have been.
Sutil’s wet-weather prowess got him up to seventh on the grid for his home GP, but it was genuine speed that kept him in the points in the dry race – until a tangle with nemesis Kimi Raikkonen.
A new front wing for Valencia was the final piece in the jigsaw.
The sinuous street track wasn’t the best place to show it, but that upgrade unlocked the Force India’s vast potential in low-drag, low-downforce configuration.
A week later on the fast sweeps of Spa, Fisichella took pole position – not because of crazy weather or a showboating strategy, but because he was faster than anyone else.
It wasn’t a one-off either – had an early safety car not allowed Raikkonen and his KERS boost to get within range, Fisichella would have won.
He tailed the Ferrari for the rest of the race and gave Force India its first points with an astonishing second place.
Pundits had laughed when team owner Vijay Mallya spoke of challenging for a podium by the inaugural Indian Grand Prix in 2011... no one imagined his target would be achieved two years ahead of schedule.
Force India was fast enough to add another podium in Italy, but, even as he celebrated his brilliant front row position, Sutil was nervously eyeing the plethora of KERS cars that would be starting around him.
Sure enough, he had to follow Raikkonen (again) home in fourth.
His new team-mate Tonio Liuzzi (Fisichella having been lured away by Ferrari) also had a shot at the top three, showing excellent pace on a one-stop strategy before a hydraulic glitch halted him.
Force India wouldn’t score again after Monza – its package proving uncompetitive in Singapore and Abu Dhabi in particular, and Liuzzi finding his unfamiliarity with the car much more of a handicap at the more technical circuits that followed.
But Sutil continued to show the car’s capabilities on the fast, flowing traditional tracks, taking fourth on the grid in Japan and third at Interlagos.
A post-qualifying penalty and a first-lap tangle with Jarno Trulli respectively ruined those races.
Force India’s tally of 13 points this year was more than even its most optimistic fans would have expected when the season got underway, but adding up all the missed opportunities it’s clear that it could have threatened Renault’s eighth place in the constructors’ championship.
Even though the crashes weren’t always his fault, Sutil’s accident rate remained alarming and there were question marks over whether all three drivers got the most out of the car.
It seems churlish to pick too many faults in what was one of the biggest feel-good stories of the season.
To be fighting for victories on merit was a staggering achievement for this still-small team given its turbulent recent history.
But still you have to ponder what might have been possible had the drivers delivered more consistently and stayed out of trouble more often.
If anything, the fact that this miracle year could have been even better will only spur the team on even more as it goes into 2010 confident that its days of keeping the back row warm are over.
Force India's 2009 highlight: Pole position on pure pace at Spa – a track that meant so much to the team in its Jordan days.
Lowlight: Getting used to Q1 elimination again in Singapore after the highs of the preceding races.
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