Mallya maintains P5 target for Force India

Vijay Mallya his reaffirmed Force India's target is to finish fifth in the constructors' championship amid a tight midfield battle this season.

Force India struggled in the early races, following Nico Hulkenberg's seventh place in Australia with a return of just two points from the next three rounds. Spain again saw the team finish seventh courtesy of Sergio Perez, leaving it seventh in the standings.

With Toro Rosso, Haas, Force India and McLaren all covered by just 14 points, Mallya says retaining fifth place in the constructors' remains the aim for 2016.

“It’s still the target and we are only 12 points away from fifth place in the championship," Mallya said. "We’ve not enjoyed an easy start to the season with our fair share of bad luck, but with three quarters of the season to go we have plenty of time to catch the teams ahead of us.”

And Mallya takes further belief from the successful introduction of a major aerodynamic package in Barcelona.

“We certainly took encouragement from our performance in qualifying and the race. It’s not easy to introduce a new aerodynamic package during a race weekend, but the team did an excellent job of installing and understanding the new components.

"We could see the benefits straight away in the data and from the drivers’ feedback. Barcelona has never been our strongest track, so to come away with six points means we can feel optimistic for the upcoming races.”

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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.