Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsForce India

Mallya wants points at every race

Force India team principal Vijay Mallya says the team is now in a position where it must at least target scoring points at every race.

Sergio Perez finished fifth in the Belgian Grand Prix as Force India's B-spec car has proven competitive on various types of circuit. With Nico Hulkenberg failing to start and Romain Grosjean finishing third for Lotus, Force India actually slipped to sixth in the constructors' championship by one point and Mallya says the team has to aim for points in every race to regain the position.

“The high-speed challenge of historic Monza is always one of the highlights of the year," Mallya said. "It’s the final race of the European season and it’s important that we score strongly to regain the initiative in our fight for fifth place in the standings.

“The last race in Belgium showed that the updates we’ve brought to the VJM08 are working as intended. We’ve taken some big steps forward over the last couple of months and with more developments in the pipeline I think we can keep up this momentum.

“Of course, the result in Spa was bittersweet as we could only compete with one car, but we’ve shown that the VJM08 is capable of qualifying and racing well inside the top ten. At the same time, Spa reminded us that we cannot take our progress for granted and we must continue to work hard to remain at the front of the midfield battle.

“Monza is a track where we expect to be competitive. We go there aiming to get both our cars in Q3 on Saturday and in the points on Sunday – that must be our target for all the races to come.”

Following his strong result at Spa-Francorchamps, Perez has been targeting podiums in the final eight rounds of the season.

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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.