Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsForce India

Mallya sure Force India will bounce back

Force India team principal Vijay Mallya is expecting his team to bounce back with an improved result this weekend at the Belgian Grand Prix.

Having introduced its B-spec car at Silverstone, Force India was again competitive in Hungary but ended up having to retire both cars, with Sergio Perez suffering a big crash in practice and Nico Hulkenberg missing out on a big haul of points when his front wing failed.

Mallya admits the failures were disappointing but says the team has reacted well and he believes Force India is set for a strong weekend.

"The summer break has given us a chance to regroup following a challenging race in Budapest," Mallya said. "The whole team has worked extremely hard to repair the cars and solve the problems that we encountered in Hungary, and we’re ready to bounce back this weekend in Spa.

"Although the Hungarian Grand Prix was disappointing, I prefer to focus on the positives, especially the strong pace we showed in the first half of the race. We saw that the VJM08 is capable of running comfortably inside the top ten, which gives us confidence for the second half of the season. There remains an upbeat feeling in the team and I think we can look forward to some competitive races to come.

“Returning to Spa is always special because it’s one of those tracks that truly captures the imagination. The drivers love to race here and it’s a favourite with the fans too. We expect to be in good shape this weekend and we will be aiming for Q3 on Saturday and good points on Sunday.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.