By IANS,
Silverstone: Sahara Force India team principal Vijay Mallya feels his team can attain fifth place in the Formula One constructors’ championship and sustain the pace it showed in Valencia.
Force India go into the British Grand Prix next weekend at the back of their season’s best result which saw Nico Hulkenberg and Paul di Resta coming fifth and seventh at Valencia. The effort got the Silverstone-based outfit 16 points, pushing their tally to 44 and one less than the seventh-placed Williams.
“We are only one point shy of Williams right now and 16 points away from Sauber, who have had podium finishes. So we are getting there,” Mallya was quoted as saying by the official F1 website.
“We are definitely on target. I want to finish fifth in the constructors’ championship this year and – fingers crossed – it looks like we’re getting there,” he said referring to sixth-placed Sauber. Mercedes is fifth on 92 points.
Mallya was happy with the VJM05’s pace and rued the missed opportunity in Canada two weeks ago.
“Speaking frankly, we should have had the same or a similar result in Canada. But there we completely miscalculated the tyre behaviour.
“We ran the tyres too hot and subsequent analysis confirmed that this was a mistake on our part. We all agreed that it was a mistake and without it we would have left Montreal with a better result, possibly even a double points finish. But that is Formula 1. There is always an element of unpredictability,” he said.
The team had managed sixth place in 2011.