Hungary a good test of Force India's P4 credentials

40

The Hungarian Grand Prix will provide a good test of Force India's credentials to challenge for fourth place in the constructors' championship.

Force India finished fifth last year and started this year slowly but an upgrade introduced in Barcelona has seen the team take a clear step forward and start to close in on Williams. A return of 14 points at Silverstone - while Williams failed to score - saw Force India close the gap to 19 points, but both cars retired in Hungary last year with suspension problems a concern.

Team principal Vijay Mallya believes the different type of circuit will highlight how strong Force India is likely to be for the rest of the season.

“Budapest last year was a pretty challenging weekend for the team and a race we prefer to forget," Mallya said. "So things can only get better this year. The twisty layout of the Hungaroring is the complete opposite of Silverstone so it will be interesting to see how we perform there. We’ve worked hard to improve the car through low and medium-speed corners so I think we should be in good shape this weekend.”

And Mallya believes scoring consistently strong points will be the key to overhauling Williams in the second half of the season.

“I thoroughly enjoyed the Silverstone weekend. The atmosphere was fantastic and it was great to see a full house on Sunday. The enthusiasm from the British crowd showed Formula One at its best. Meeting fans in the campsites was great fun and I’m pleased they were treated to an entertaining race.

“I’m very proud of our performance at Silverstone. 14 points represents our best ever score from a British Grand Prix and it means we are closing down the gap to fourth place in the championship. I take real encouragement from our pace across the whole weekend, especially during the race. With half the season to go, there’s no reason why we can’t score good points at every race. If we want to fight for fourth, that’s what we need to do."

Closing the gap? 2016 constructors points progression

FEATURE: Red Bull Racing: Be My Guest

From the cockpit: Felipe Nasr on the green grass of home

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

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.