Mallya hails renewed momentum at Force India

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After a problematic start to the 2018 season for Force India, team principal Vijay Mallya is happy to see the squad finally appear to pick up some momentum ahead of the halfway point in the current campaign.

Force India has taken fourth place in the constructors championship in the past two seasons. However this year it had slipped as low as seventh before gaining back a place at Silverstone last time out.

That was thanks to more points for both Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez, who once again both managed to finish in the top ten in the British Grand Prix.

"We have been finding performance as a team with strong results in the last few races," commented Ocon.

“I was happy to rescue a point last weekend in Silverstone after a big recovery," added Perez.

“It’s been satisfying to get both cars in the points for the last two races," agreed Mallya. "It’s what we need to do for our fight in the constructors’ championship.

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"Germany marks the half way point in the season and it feels as though we have some momentum now," he added.

A cash crunch meant that the team hadn't been able to get on with its development programme at the start of the year to the extent that it had wanted.

But the improvement in form in recent races suggests that Force India is finally over the worst of it.

"The updates we introduced in Silverstone helped and there’s more performance to be unlocked," agreed Mallya.

"We’ve been a bit unlucky in the first half of the season, especially getting caught up in first lap incidents," he pointed out. "I think we are due a change in fortune.

"Scoring points in all of the remaining races is a realistic target, but I expect the midfield fight to get even closer in the races to come."

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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.