Force India is hoping a new floor will help the team recover from a correlation issue that has limited its ability to bring upgrades to its car so far this season.

Having launched a fairly underdeveloped car for pre-season testing, Force India introduced a major upgrade ahead of the Australian Grand Prix but found it didn’t perform as expected. Since the race in Bahrain the team has shown improved pace as it understands the difference between its simulations and track performance, and deputy team principal Bob Fernley told RACER the next step will be to introduce changes to the floor at the Spanish Grand Prix.

“I think certainly a certain part of it will be floors if we can be looking at that, because that’s part of the correlation issue,” Fernley said. “Then I think we’ve got to look at it from there onwards. When you have a situation like this it’s difficult to find and what we must remember is the fantastic job that the team did in Bahrain, because we did a huge amount of work there to get the data. But nothing happens overnight.”

Fernley added that the issues the team has faced has resulted in it having a number of parts that deliver greater levels of downforce but would be detrimental to the balance of the car.

“There will be upgrades coming all the time, that’s something we don’t stop on. But we just need to make sure that we address this correlation issue so that we can then start bolting on the performance. Because we’ve got front wings that were brought in that are at the moment too powerful to balance it, so we have got to get to a position where we can re-introduce those. So that tells you we’re in the right direction.”

Asked if that means the team needs to focus on finding more rear stability at the same time, Fernley added: “It’s across the board, it’s not just one area.

“It’s just a case of being able to get ourselves back on track again. Andrew and the team, as always, will do a fantastic job of that.”