Rival teams have tried to 'usurp' Force India - Szafnauer

Force India chief operating officer Otmar Szafnauer has claimed that teams 'both bigger and smaller' have attempted to poach some of their staff due to their continued performance beyond expectations on the track, but said nobody has jumped ship as of yet.

In the 2018 season, Force India are aiming to at least claim their third consecutive fourth-place finish in the constructor's championships - a remarkable achievement considering they have one of the lowest budgets on the grid.

The success has not gone unnoticed, apparently, as Szafnauer has claimed that rivals teams have attempted to poach some of his key employees.

"We've had bigger and smaller teams approach us and try to usurp some of our key personnel," the COO told RACER.

"But I'm happy to report that going into the new season we'll have the same and we've added a few in some key areas as well.

"There's always potential in every team – that's how this business works. The better you do the more others will look at how you're doing it and try to emulate or usurp some of your key employees."

With Force India set to go into the new campaign with all the same personnel as their previous successful seasons, Szafnauer thinks they can only improve.

"We have made a few small changes on the track engineering side," he continued.

"We've bolstered our CFD capabilities as well.

"But I think most importantly the longer we have a stable team the more some of those weaknesses go away naturally because we retain our knowledge and we build on our success of years past. We don't lose our knowledge of how we got there and we build on that to become better.

"So I think one of the keys to our success is stability in key personnel, and we've been able to have a pretty uninterrupted winter from a personnel perspective. That includes drivers."