2017 Force India-Mercedes VJM10 Formula 1 Racing Single-Seater
Chassis no. VJM10-01

Offered in show-car condition less engine and transmission.

Here Bonhams offers this most attractively presented, ten-times-raced, modern-era Formula 1 car preserved in non-running 'show car' display condition. It is offered as assembled in show car form around its original 2017 monocoque chassis, but with bodywork and livery representing the taken-over and renamed team's 2019 Racing Point RP19 Formula 1 contender.

This is an historically significant Formula 1 car since at core it was one of the vital tools which carried the relatively under-funded and tiny Force India team to an incredible fourth place finish in the 2017 Formula 1 Constructors' Championship. Chassis 'VJM10-01's racing record during its active period in the Force India team's 2017 campaign – for which it was driven by Esteban Ocon to no fewer than nine points-scoring finishes from its nine starts - is as follows:

Australian GP, Melbourne – Esteban Ocon – q.13th – 10th – points-scoring finish
Chinese GP, Shanghai - Esteban Ocon – q.17th – 10th– points-scoring finish
Bahrain GP, Sakhir - Esteban Ocon – q.14th – 10th– points-scoring finish
Russian GP, Sochi - Esteban Ocon – q.10th – 7th– points-scoring finish
Spanish GP, Catalunya - Esteban Ocon – q.10th – 5th– points-scoring finish
Monaco GP, Monte Carlo - Esteban Ocon – q.15th – 12th
Canadian GP, Montreal - Esteban Ocon – q.9th – 6th– points-scoring finish
Azerbaijan GP, Baku - Esteban Ocon – q.7th – 6th– points-scoring finish
Austrian GP, Red Bull Ring - Esteban Ocon – q.9th – 8th– points-scoring finish
British GP, Silverstone - Esteban Ocon – q.7th – 8th– points-scoring finish

As can be clearly seen from the above racing record, here is a small-team Formula 1 car which punched way above its supposed weight at World Championship level when guided by the promising young French driver – today a Grand Prix winner, of course, having triumphed in the 2021 Hungarian GP when driving for the Alpine (Renault) team.
Esteban José Jean-Pierre Ocon-Khelfane is a French racing driver whose father was a Normandy garage owner of Spanish extraction, and who sold both the family home and the garage to help fund his son's early racing career.
By the age of 14 Esteban had achieved such karting success he was signed up by an affiliate of Renault F1 enabling him to learn the ropes of world-class circuit racing in Formula Renault single-seaters 2012-13. Over the following three years he worked his way through Formula 3, winning the 2014 European F3 Championship and in 2015 he won the GP3 title while also serving as reserve driver for Renault F1. When another Force India driver candidate fell ill, Ocon tested for the team in Barcelona, but in 2016 made his Formula 1 debut with Manor Racing, before being signed for Force India's 2017 campaign, teamed with the admired Mexican Sergio 'Checo' Pérez.

While the pair had some controversial moments during that 2017 season, Pérez and Ocon both finished so consistently well that they placed seventh and eighth overall in the Drivers' World Championship standings come year's end. And only three teams accumulated more Formula 1 Constructors' Championship points than Force India; Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull. With these VJM10 cars, Force India headed the likes of Williams, Renault and McLaren that year.

Focus of the Force India VJM10 Formula 1 design was to prove competitive under revised Formula 1 technical regulations for 2017. The Mercedes power unit and gearbox defined the general layout of the VJM10 as a long-wheelbase car, but the Force India technical team under Andy Green pursued a high-rake aerodynamic concept in contrast to the works Mercedes team's low-rake preference. Chief aerodynamicist Simon Phillips worked with the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. Team direction was by Otmar Szafnauer, under whom Force India displayed an immensely practical, common-sense approach to racing strategy, particularly with tyre choice.

Some rear-end instability became characteristic of the VJM10 design but it was improved as the season progressed though never fully corrected. This trait was believed to be aero-derived but certain aspects of the rear suspension geometry had been compromised because the Mercedes gearbox's suspension pick-up points had been tailored to Mercedes' own low-rake concept, whereas Force India's was increasingly high-rake – the cars running nose down/tail high to achieve their optimum performance.

Through the 2017 season the four Force India-Mercedes VJM10s built saw the design's superior reliability and consistency offset its mid-field rival Renault's greater development budget and pace.

The Force India Formula 1 racing team was founded in time to enter competition in the 2008 Formula 1 World Championship series, but the organisation's background dated back as far as 1991 when former racing driver Eddie Jordan's rapidly-growing équipe first entered the premier-league Grand Prix racing category, operating from its headquarters adjacent to the historic Silverstone circuit in Northamptonshire, England.

Jordan Formula 1 enjoyed many years in World Championship contention, winning four Grand Prix rounds and securing third place overall in the 1999 Constructors' Championship. However, fortunes deteriorated thereafter and eventually in 2005 Eddie Jordan sold the team to the Midland Group. Midland F1 Racing struggled at that level until owner Alex Shnaider sold the team to Dutch-managed entity Spyker Cars in mid-2006.

Spyker F1 took one World Championship point in 2007 and - after driver Markus Winkelhock briefly led the rain-swept European Grand Prix at the Neue Nürburgring - the team was once again sold, this time for 88-million Euros to the hyper-enthusiastic Indian chairman of the United Breweries Group and Michiel Mol, Spyker's contemporary Formula One Director.

The venture became renamed the Force India Formula One Team for the 2008 season. Led by the experienced Colin Kolles, with Mike Gascoyne as chief technology officer, and drivers Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella, the revised team finished tenth place in that year's Constructors' Championship, best placing being tenth in the Spanish Grand Prix.

Force India retained the same drivers for 2009 when its VJM02 cars were powered by Mercedes-Benz engines, with McLaren-Mercedes gearboxes, hydraulic systems and kinetic energy recovery systems. Force India took its first pole position at the year's Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps, when Fisichella qualified fastest, and finally finished second overall.

For the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, Adrian Sutil qualified second before finishing fourth and setting fastest lap of the race. Ninth in the end-of-season Constructors' table did not reflect vast strides made by Force India that season.

The team's other podium finishes would go on to include five third-places, in the 2014 Bahrain Grand Prix, 2015 Russian Grand Prix, 2016 Monaco Grand Prix, 2016 European Grand Prix and the 2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, all achieved by Sergio Pérez.

In 2018, the team's assets were bought by a consortium of investors, named Racing Point UK and led by Lawrence Stroll, the father of then Williams driver Lance Stroll. The consortium used the assets to create a new entry into the sport named Racing Point Force India. The constructor that had been founded in 2008 ceased to exist prior to the 2019 Australian Grand Prix when the new team formalised their constructor entry title as being 'Racing Point'.

But as 'Autocourse' annual had summed-up at the close of the 2017 Formula 1 World Championship racing season: "Force India did a near-perfect job in maximising its resource...". And here we offer an enduring example of that heart-warming saga, updated to 2019-configuration show car form, as viewed.

Please note that this lot is subject to VAT (at the standard rate) on the Hammer Price.