Tuesday 7th July 2009
Mallya expects upgrades to deliver
Force India chairman Vijay Mallya hopes that three weeks of honing the aero package will finally break the team's points duck.
He said the new aero package, that debuted in Silverstone, and finetuning smaller modifications should be able to deliver maiden points for Force India at the German Grand Prix.
Silverstone marked yet another near-miss for the outfit as Giancarlo Fisichella ran an inspired race to finish 10th overall, just under two seconds from the last point-scoring position.
Time to break the jinx?
The outfit has used the subsequent three-week time to finetune the new aero package and finalise smaller modifications and Mallya is hoping to finally get the maiden points that have slipped through the fingers more than once this season.
"As we have had a longer gap between Silverstone and Germany, the team back at the factory has been working very hard on consolidating the step forward we made at the last event," Mallya, also the team principal, said.
"We will have a continuation of the new front-wing assembly we used in Britain and a new detail on the floor. The upgrades in Silverstone gave us extra performance and we'd all like to convert this into a points-scoring position in Germany," he explained.
Team a real contender now
Force India may not have points to show but Mallya believes the team has established itself as a mid-field outfit, which convinces him of Force India's ability to score points in the remainder of the season.
"We knew we had to introduce a significant upgrade in Bahrain, then a more comprehensive upgrade at Silverstone. I think this upgrade showed that the car is now a true, strong midfield competitor.
2011 aim achievable
"The bottom line is that we're there, and all that I had programmed for the team in terms of gradual improvement in 2009 is happening. Given our relatively small size, this is a great achievement and we'll keep going flat out up to the mandatory August break. I hope that we will score some points during the remainder of this season," he said.
"Otherwise I'm more than just optimistic -- in fact I'm pretty confident -- that from 2010 onwards we will be in the points on a regular basis. And that leads me to believe that my often stated objective of being on the podium in 2011 isn't a pipe dream anymore," he added.
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