Force India owner Vijay Mallya is adamant his team were no one-hit wonders in Germany and will soon break their points duck.

After qualifying a career and team-high seventh at the Nurburgring, Adrian Sutil should have ended Force India's long wait for a top-eight finish.

However, as in Monaco last year, Kimi Raikkonen again proved to be the German's undoing as the Finn collided with the 26-year-old as he exited the pit lane at the midway point of the 60-lap race.

Forced into an immediate return to the pits for repairs, Sutil eventually trailed home 15th, 13 seconds behind eighth-placed Heikki Kovalainen, and a case of what might have been.

But armed with the belief his team are the most improved on the grid this year, Mallya feels it is a case of when - not if - they grab a point or two, potentially at this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix.

"We always said the first few races would be compromised by the late signing of the McLaren and Mercedes deal (for engines)," said Mallya.

"But since then we've been introducing new upgrades, and each one has been a step forward.

"We had hoped this progress would be reflected in Silverstone, but due to events on track, we couldn't show the full potential.

"In Germany this is what you saw. I am confident that Germany was not just a one-hit wonder for us.

"Over the course of the season we've calculated we've improved by something like 1.7seconds, which I don't think any other team has done.

"It's been done by solid hard work and not just getting lucky.

"In Germany, Adrian had a superb qualifying and, as we saw in Q3, even on a very heavy fuel load, he was one of the quicker cars.

"In the dry race both Giancarlo (Fisichella) and Adrian were able to lap quickly and keep pace at various times with the Ferraris, Renaults and McLarens.

"So we're not just competitive in the wet, we're genuinely on the pace now."

It is why Mallya's disappointment at seeing Sutil again collide with Raikkonen was, although painful at the time, fleeting.

"In that split second when Kimi and Adrian came together, of course the whole team was disappointed and those memories of Monaco 2008 came forward," addressed Mallya.

"All the same I don't think we can be downhearted about the weekend performance and dwell too much on that point.

"We qualified in the top 10, we raced in the top five and we went some way to shirking off this reputation of being the backmarkers who only get seen while being lapped.

"I genuinely feel we are Q2 contenders for the rest of the season, and with Hungary being a circuit where qualifying is so crucial, we're in with a shot of a good finish.

"We're so close to points we can almost touch them. It has to be soon."