Vijay Mallya believes his Force India team can regain the ground lost to Williams in the constructors championship.
The Silverstone-based team heads into the mid-season break having held a place in the top 4 of the constructors standings for the majority of the season so far, with the team being as high as 2nd having seen Sergio Perez grab their first podium since the 2009 Belgian Grand Prix at the Bahrain Grand Prix, but have slipped behind rivals Red Bull, Ferrari and most recently Williams at Silverstone as the season’s unfolded.
In an interview with Formula 1’s official website, The Force India team boss was satisfied with the team’s performance in the first half of the season and didn’t believe that holding fourth in the constructors for several races was a possibility.
“We’ve been in fourth position up to the eighth race, and now we’re sitting in P5, which is fine. We did not expect that we would reach fourth and maintain it right through the season” said Mallya.
However he reckons qualifying is an area for improvement if the team are to make better use of their strong race pace in comparison and pointed out Hungary as a main example.
“If I reflect on those first months of the year what I would say is that I’d like us to do better in qualifying. It was also an issue this weekend [at Hungary] – probably if we had qualified better some of the issues wouldn’t have come up.
“At some tracks – and Budapest is one of them – where you start has a bigger influence on the result, because our long-run pace usually moves us further towards the front again” he explained.
When asked about Williams’ impressive run of form, Mallya anticipated that kind of form from them at the beginning of the season, but believes they are within reach for Force India.
“It was very clear [from pre-season testing] that they would be very competitive. In fact I was a bit surprised that they didn’t do in the first couple of races what they’ve done in the last few races. So we definitely will not make the mistake of underestimating them.
“Can we catch Williams? Yes, we can. We have to work hard at it as well,” Mallya added and believes the team from Grove “have done a great job and one should complement them for this – probably in the same way that we are doing well – unexpectedly – as a midfield, small team.”
Along with admitting that the pairing of Perez and Nico Hulkenberg is the best he’s had, Mallya is targetting as many points as possible heading into all of the remaining races this season.
“Our team knows the job: that means maximum points – and maximum points will determine our position in the constructors championship.”
