Force India's chief operating officer Otmar Szafnauer says that he believes the team has done enough during winter development and testing to ensure that it continues to run in fifth place or possibly do even better in the 2016 Formula One world championship.
"I would say we’re not going to be far off where we finished last year," Szafnauer told F1i this week. "Our target has to be to finish at least where we finished last year - fifth or better - and improve on the amount of podium positions that we’ve had.
"Our relative performance has to be better than last year," he added. "I think we made great strides towards the end of last year and if we’re able to keep that relative position I think that’s a winter success for us."
Not that Szafnauer is taking anything for granted, being all too well aware of the competition that awaits them in Melbourne next week.
"It’s very tight in the midfield there with Toro Rosso, Williams, ourselves and Red Bull, if you want to call that the midfield," he said.
"There’s only a couple of teams that are clearly ahead and that’s Ferrari and Mercedes. Even Ferrari I don’t think are that far ahead of us."
Among the challenges that Szafnauer faces coming into the new season is how to split Force India's limited resources to address the upcoming technical regulation changes in 2017. But that is the same for everyone, and Szafnauer said it might even play to the team's advantage.
"If we do a good job early on and people switch over to 2017 at the same time we do, maybe even chasing fourth would be realistic," he speculated.
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