The covers have come off Force India’s VJM09 as teams gather to kick off the new season at the opening pre-season test at Barcelona.

The Silverstone outfit revealed its latest design in front of assembled media before the start of testing at the Circuit de Catalunya.

Following on from last season, the VJM09 features a relatively unchanged black, silver and orange livery and is one of the few teams not to adopt a short nose.

Continuity is ever present in its driver line up with Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez retained.

Force India technical director Andrew Green says the b-spec version of last year’s car has formed the base of the VJM09.

“We were in a situation in which the performance on track was very good, and in which the data we were getting correlated well to what we were expecting, so we knew we could continue to develop on a solid platform,” said Green.

“With the regulations likely to change for 2017, it didn’t really seem like an efficient use of our resources to start from scratch on a project that would have such a limited lifetime.”

Chief operating officer Otmar Szafnauer believes the VJM09 will feature ‘encouraging’ aerodynamic gains on last year’s car with further developments to arrive as the season progresses.

“The wind tunnel programme in Cologne is maturing nicely and I’m encouraged by the gains we have made over the winter,” said Szafnauer.

“The first major aero updates should be on the car in time for Melbourne and we also plan another big step for the start of the European season.”

Force India finished fifth in the constructor standings last year.