Giancarlo Fisichella had echoed David Coulthard's views about Force India turning out to be the surprise package of the 2009 season. Now, with their Mercedes Benz-powered car making its track debut in Jerez on Sunday, the Indian outfit is understandably optimistic about its chances.

However, the team's former chief technology officer Mike Gascoyne, has said that despite the reliability of the Mercedes engine and drivetrain package, the team needs to be realistic about its prospects.

"Given the late launch and late switch to a new engine, and also given there is no testing allowed during the season, Force India F1 should be realistic about their expectations," Gascoyne told DNA. "Changing engines at such a late stage will mean a loss of at least two months of development time that will be difficult to recover," he observed.

Gascoyne, who was the technical boss of Jordan, Renault and Toyota, feels the alliance with Mercedes-Benz will help Force India in the long run. "It is important for any of the small teams to forge links to a major manufacturer partner," he said. He, however, added that given the current regulations, it would be interesting to see how much assistance and technical help Mercedes-Benz will be able to provide at the moment.

The other factor that could weigh in Force India's favour is the unprecedented change in regulations from this year. "Any big regulation change gives a possible advantage to any team behind the opposition. The big change in regulations wipes out the advantage of the best teams and levels the playing field for the smaller teams," he said.

When asked as to why the team failed to score even a single point in 18 races, Gascoyne said that the team could have scored points given the right circumstances. "We showed it at Monaco," he said. It may be recalled that Force India had missed out on scoring points at the Monaco Grand Prix after Kimi Raikkonen crashed into Adrian Sutil, who was running in fourth place with 7 laps to go.

Gascoyne added that last year, the team was still the smallest in F1 and that the 2008 car was designed on limited budget. "I believe the improvement in the team relative to the top teams was very impressive in the circumstances," he remarked.