Force India: McLaren not out of reach

Force India boss Vijay Mallya has not ruled out beating McLaren in the constructors' championship despite his team's poor recent run.

Mallya's operation was ahead of the Woking-based squad in the battle for fifth place until the Belgian Grand Prix, when McLaren moved in front.

Force India has struggled to maintain its early-season form, with McLaren having outscored the Silverstone team 39-3 in the last five races.

McLaren is now 14 points ahead with six races remaining - a gap Mallya insists can still be closed down.

"The objective has not changed. McLaren have a points lead over us, but they are not totally out of reach," said Mallya.

"As I've said before, turning on the tyres is paramount and we are working hard to achieve this.

"There are a lot of points on offer and we need to try and regain the performance level we showed in the first part of the season."

Mallya is aware, however, that this weekend's Korean Grand Prix will not represent the best opportunity for his team, as it is a track where Force India has struggled in the past.

"It's never been our strongest track, although we did score some points there last year," he said.


"It's quite low-grip and the cooler temperatures make it a very different challenge.

"We will go there ready to learn as much as possible, try and improve our qualifying pace and come up with a smart strategy for Sunday."

FORCE INDIA VS McLAREN
Finishing positions of Paul di Resta/Adrian Sutil versus Jenson Button/Sergio Perez in the last five races.

Race        Force India     McLaren     Points gap*
Germany    11th/13th       6th/8th             12
Hungary     DNF/DNF        7th/9th              8
Belgium     DNF/9th         6th/11th             6
Italy          DNF/DNF          10th/12th         1
Singapore   DNF/10th       7th/8th              9

Source : Autosport.com

Di Resta: I’m not sure what happened

Paul di Resta appeared to be on course for another remarkable result in the Singapore Grand Prix, running in the points after failing to progress past the opening phase of qualifying on Saturday, before crashing out in the closing stages.
The Scot, who has defied a poor grid position on more than one occasion this season, had already gained six places on the opening lap before a long opening stint on the supersoft compound tyre – which saw him run longer than anyone else in the field – pushed him firmly into contention for some points.

Already expecting better performance in race set-up, the Scot was poised to take advantage of his strategy and potentially grab sixth position – and 'best of the rest' honours behind the likes of Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes – when he skated into the tyre wall with seven laps remaining. The incident marked a third straight DNF for the Scot, and five races without points, but he remained at a loss to explain how it happened.

“It's such a shame to come away with nothing to show from a race where we had put ourselves in a position to score some valuable points,” he sighed, “The management of the tyres was good and the overall performance in race conditions was very strong. Even without the safety car we were in good shape and, as a team, we made the right calls and were looking to challenge the train of cars ahead of us in the final few laps. Then I had the incident at turn seven.

“I'm still not sure what happened, but I took the corner the same way as I had done the previous lap and the car went straight on and wouldn't stop. The team is investigating what happened.”

di Resta's misfortune benefited Sahara Force India team-mate Adrian Sutil, who came through to claim the final point for tenth position. The German was alone in opting to start on the harder, medium compound, tyre, but had been unable to make it last any longer than those on the supersofts, and switched to scrubbed sets of the option rubber thereafter.

“It was a tough race and exhausting in the end, so it feels great to come away with a point - it's a small motivation for the whole team,” he reflected, “In the closing laps of the race, I was catching the train of cars in front of me – Perez, Button and Hulkenberg - and thought I had a chance to get ahead of at least one of them but, as soon as I reached the back of the train, my tyres went off.

“In fact, we were all struggling with tyres and I couldn't attack anymore because it felt like driving on ice, so I'm happy to take the point as it's well deserved by the whole team.”

Team principal Vijay Mallya admitted that the result had left his squad with 'mixed feelings'.

“The positive is that Adrian picked up the final point and that's a good effort considering where he started the race,” Mallya noted, “On the other hand, we missed a golden opportunity to score some big points with Paul, who potentially could have finished in sixth place.

“His retirement with seven laps to go proved costly and has not helped us in our battle against McLaren. However, as a team we must focus on the positives of the competitive race pace, good tyre management, and the calls we made with the strategy. Korea in two weeks' time will be a chance to regroup and keep up our fighting spirit.” 

Source : Crash.net

Singapore GP, Race - Force India driver quotes

Adrian Sutil, 10th
“It was a tough race and exhausting in the end. So it feels great to come away with a point and it’s a small motivation for the whole team. In the closing laps of the race I was catching the train of cars in front of me - Perez, Button and Hulkenberg. I thought I had a chance to get ahead of at least one of them, but as soon as I reached the back of the train my tyres went off. In fact, we were all struggling with tyres and I couldn’t attack anymore because it felt like driving on ice. So I’m happy to take the point and it’s well deserved by the whole team.”

Paul di Resta, 20th
“It’s such a shame to come away with nothing to show from a race where we had put ourselves in a position to score some valuable points. The management of the tyres was good and the overall performance in race conditions was very strong. Even without the safety car we were in good shape, but as a team we made the right calls and were looking to challenge the train of cars ahead of us in the final few laps. Then I had the incident at turn seven. I’m still not sure what happened, but I took the corner the same way as I had done the previous lap and the car went straight on and wouldn’t stop. The team is investigating what happened.”

Dr Vijay Mallya, Force India team principal and managing director
“We come away from Singapore with mixed feelings. The positive is that Adrian picked up the final point and that’s a good effort considering where he started the race. On the other hand we missed a golden opportunity to score some big points with Paul, who potentially could have finished in sixth place. His retirement with seven laps to go proved costly and has not helped us in our battle against McLaren. As a team we must focus on the positives of the competitive race pace, good tyre management, and the calls we made with the strategy. Korea in two weeks’ time will be a chance to regroup and keep up our fighting spirit.”

Source : Formula1.com

Sigapore GP Qualifying - Force India driver quotes

Adrian Sutil (15th, Q2 - 1m 45.185s)
“P15 is disappointing because it’s some way off where we were aiming to be. We are just too slow to fight for the top ten at the moment and everyone is working hard to try and understand where we are losing out. All we can do is keep fighting tomorrow and if we do a good strategy we can hopefully gain some places.”

Paul di Resta (17th, Q1 - 1m 46.121s)
“I think we simply didn’t have enough speed today and all weekend I’ve been struggling with my one-lap pace. I think we are more optimised for the race and the speed looks better over long runs, with low degradation of the tyres. But we’ve got some work to do tomorrow if we want to be fighting for points. We came here and tried to replicate as much as we could from last year, but we’ve just not been able to find the zone. It’s a tough, long race ahead of us and it’s difficult to overtake, but anything can happen and we will keep fighting.”

Dr Vijay Mallya, Force India team principal and managing director
“Singapore has traditionally been one of our stronger tracks, but for various reasons it’s not suited us this year. We’ve not been able to get the car in the optimal working range and it’s clear that we are not getting the most from the tyres. There’s a big task facing us tomorrow if we want to come away with points, but history has shown that the Singapore Grand Prix can be an unpredictable race. Our long run pace has looked more encouraging so hopefully we can exploit that tomorrow and make the most of events in the race to maximise our strategies.”

Source : Formula1.com

Singapore preview - Force India`

Paul di Resta, Force India
2012 Qualifying - 6th, 2012 Race - 4th
“Given our form lately it’s difficult to know what to expect. It’s a track I enjoy, a great venue and we had a great result there last year with fourth place. It would be great to try and repeat that, but it’s going to be tough given how competitive the grid is at the moment.

“It’s a popular race and the unusual schedule makes it interesting. I always stay on European time and that helps because you can avoid the jet lag. I will stick to my usual routine of going to bed at six in the morning and getting up at two in the afternoon because that’s always worked well for me.”

Adrian Sutil, Force India
2012 Qualifying - n/a, 2012 Race - n/a
“It’s not my favourite track, but it’s one of those places that I’ve come to like more and more. There are some nice sections and it’s quite wide for a street circuit, which helps with overtaking. I always enjoy street races and the city is amazing. The atmosphere means it’s definitely one of the best races of the year.
“In Singapore the night becomes your day and I’ve never had a problem coping with the schedule. Every year you learn more about the best technique for sleeping during the day. As for the track, you almost forget you are driving at night because the lights are so bright and clear. The visibility is perfect.
“We’ve got to qualify well to give ourselves the best chance of scoring points. We are still close to McLaren in the championship and we need to make sure we keep a healthy margin ahead of Toro Rosso and Sauber. Singapore can sometimes generate surprises and there’s always the risk of rain, so as a team we need to be ready to react quickly and make the most of any opportunities.”

Dr Vijay Mallya, Force India team principal
“We’ve been strong in Singapore, especially last year. Hopefully that will continue this year, but we know we’ve got to get on top of the tyres to unleash the potential of the car. Points must be the target for this weekend to keep up our momentum in the championship fight. There are a lot of Indians and a lot of our fans based in Singapore, and there’s always a great atmosphere in the city. It’s one of the highlights of the year, the place looks wonderful when it’s lit up and I always look forward to it.”

Source : Formula1.com
 

Italian GP - Force India driver quotes

Adrian Sutil, 16th
“A tough race today and in the end we had to retire the car because of issues with the brakes. I tried my best and I don’t think we could have delivered anymore because I was on the limit throughout the race. The pit stop was good, but the team had to hold me on the exit because Maldonado was coming in, which meant I lost a position to Gutierrez. I was able to pass him again on the track, but there were some quick cars [Kimi and Lewis] with fresher tyres and there was no way to hold them off. Points were not too far away, but overall we didn’t have the pace this weekend.”

Paul di Resta, DNF
“It has been one of those weekends to forget, starting with the brake failure yesterday and the early retirement today. I just got caught out going into the second chicane because the cars ahead of me got backed up – I guess they were reacting to the tussle going on ahead of them. I locked both fronts trying to stop the car and ended up hitting Grosjean. Unfortunately it was too late to take avoiding action. Now we need to look forward to Singapore and put this one behind us.”

Dr Vijay Mallya, Force India team principal and managing director
“We leave Monza empty handed after a difficult weekend. We’ve struggled for pace and had our share of misfortune. Paul’s race was over on lap one after contact with Grosjean at the second chicane, which was very disappointing. Adrian had a better start, made up some ground and moved onto the tail of the top ten. He drove a strong race with a great overtaking move on Gutierrez, but was missing the speed to fight for points. In the closing laps we were forced to retire the car with concerns over the brakes. It’s clear we need to recapture the form we showed before the summer break if we are to continue fighting for fifth in the constructors’ championship.”


Source : Formula1.com

Italian GP Qualifying - Force India driver quotes

Adrian Sutil (14th - starts 17th after penalty, Q2 - 1m 24.932s)
“A tough qualifying today. We made some changes overnight, but they didn’t really show much improvement during final practice, which was strange. So there was not much we could do ahead of qualifying apart from change a few more things to try and help the balance. The car felt a bit better for qualifying, but we are still too far away from where we should be. My lap in Q2 was not too bad and P14 was the maximum today. Scoring points tomorrow is our aim and although it’s a difficult task, we will do our best.”

Paul di Resta (16th - starts 15th after Sutil penalty, Q2 - 1m 25.077s)
“It’s been a mixed day with the brake disc failure this morning, which cost us some track time and meant we headed into qualifying with a car set-up that was far from optimised. The guys did a fantastic job to get the car ready in time, but ultimately we didn’t have the performance to do any better than P16. It’s fair to say that we have struggled more with our one-lap pace here, so hopefully we can be more competitive in race conditions. There’s also talk of changeable weather so maybe we can do something with the strategy to move forward in the race.”

Dr Vijay Mallya, Force India team principal and managing director
“Monza has traditionally been a happy hunting ground for Sahara Force India, but we’ve not been on the pace this weekend. Yesterday we saw both drivers unable to find a good balance and struggling with the car under braking, and despite our best efforts we’ve not totally solved those issues. I think that showed in today’s qualifying session where both cars were missing grip. Starting from P14 and P16 means we’ve got a bit of a fight on our hands tomorrow, but we never give up and will try our best to come away with some points.”

Source : Formula1.com

Italian GP - Friday practice Force India driver quotes

Paul di Resta, P1 - 1:26.594, 15th; P2 - 1:25.830, 11th
“The car seems to be relatively well balanced, but we’ve not been able to break into the top ten yet. So we need to work away tonight to try and improve things a bit more. Making Q3 tomorrow is the big target, which is definitely achievable. The field looks quite spread out here, certainly compared to some other races, but we seem to be close to McLaren. The tyres are performing in line with our predictions and we’ve got plenty of data to go through tonight.”

Adrian Sutil, P2 - 1:26.028, 13th
“Monza is an unusual track so it’s been quite a challenge to get on top of the car today. There’s certainly a lot to look at tonight because we need to improve the car under braking and make it easier to drive as I’m lacking overall grip at the moment. For the tyres we have the data we need and the long run performance looked okay.”

James Calado, P1 - 1:27.041, 17th
“Amazing - that’s the only word I can use to describe the day. It took a while to get used to the car again, but once I was familiar with everything I was able to drive consistently and set some reasonable lap times. The balance felt good and everything ran smoothly during the session. I learned a lot and hopefully got some good data for the team. I want to say a big ‘thank you’ to Sahara Force India for the opportunity and I’m already looking forward to getting back in the car later in the year.”

Robert Fernley, Force India deputy team principal
“A fairly typical Friday at Monza as we worked through our programme without any issues. James enjoyed his first free practice outing and did a great job. He was tasked with some suspension work and delivered a good performance with detailed feedback – which is just what we needed. We ran a new low-downforce rear wing on the cars today, one that we first used in Spa practice, and recoded lots of aero data to help us find the optimum set-up. As for outright performance, it’s hard to know exactly where we stand, but we will certainly be aiming for the top ten come tomorrow afternoon.”

Source : formula1.com

Italian GP preview quotes: Force India

Paul di Resta
Paul, you were competitive in Spa, but unlucky in the race. What was your view on the overall performance?
I feel we've certainly solved some of the issues we had in Hungary, but it's also apparent that some teams have caught up with us, and I don't think we've got the advantage that we had before. It's going to be a fight all the way, especially with teams like McLaren taking a step forward, and it will be an interesting end to the year. We need to keep optimising the car and we've still got a bit more potential to unleash from the tyre situation.

Are you confident that the tracks coming up will suit the VJM06?
I couldn't honestly predict at the moment. Based on our past performance you'd say that Monza and Singapore are two of the stronger tracks for us. Going on Silverstone's qualifying performance, you would say Suzuka might work well for us, but the tyres have changed since then so it's hard to predict.

What about your hopes for this weekend in Monza?
I'd like to say we can be competitive, but we have to see how it is when we get there on Friday morning. We had a very good qualifying session last year and we ended up fourth fastest so that's a good sign for this year.

Adrian Sutil

Adrian, you were back in the points at Spa - a good way to kick off the second part of the season...
I had to fight very hard for those points and I think that was the maximum we could get from the race. The encouraging thing is that our pace was a bit better than the previous race and I was able to overtake - that was the key to getting in the points.

Does the performance in Spa give you confidence for this weekend's race?
The car is very efficient and we showed good top speed in Spa, so I expect the same this weekend. We are usually quick at Monza and I remember Paul qualified well last year. Also, it's the track where I got my best result in Formula One in 2009 so historically it's one of our best tracks.

What is your approach to the remaining eight races?
I'm always positive. We got points in Spa, but the next race is a new chance and we've got to keep scoring. The races coming up are very nice with some classics tracks: Monza, Singapore, Suzuka. They are some of my favourites tracks and I have a good feeling for this part of the season.

Vijay Mallya

The team picked up two points in Belgium. What was your view on the team's performance?
We could have had both cars in the points, but for the unfortunate incident where Paul was taken out by Maldonado. Nevertheless it's good to be in the points in the first race back after the break. We've still got some more work to do because McLaren got ahead of us, but they are only four points ahead and that's not too much to catch up.

How do you see the championship battle going forward?
I guess it will be a neck and neck race. McLaren have obviously spent a lot of time working on this year's car and they have improved significantly. We've stopped the development of the 2013 car and have focussed mainly on 2014 because there are so many technical challenges for next year. So we need to extract the best of what we have to maintain our competitiveness going forward for the rest of the season.

There's been speculation linking James Calado with the team. What's the situation?
I'm pleased to confirm that we've signed James as our third driver. We worked with him during the Silverstone test and he impressed everyone with his speed and consistency. We've always tried to support young drivers and this is a great opportunity for James to gain some valuable experience of driving during Formula One race events.

What's the plan for James this weekend?
James will take part in the opening free practice session on Friday. He will also run in practice at several other races this year. It's always useful to get another driver's feedback on the car and it will help us evaluate James.

What about Monza? Can the team perform well there?
Like Spa, the track suits us, so we hope to be able to capitalise on that. But, as I've always said, my direction for the technical team has been to develop a car that is competitive on all tracks, which is something we have achieved for the last few years.

Source : Autosport.com