SILVERSTONE, June 27 (IANS): Sahara Force India team principal Vijay Mallya feels his team can attain fifth place in the Formula One constructors� championship and sustain the pace it showed in Valencia.
Force India go into the British Grand Prix next weekend at the back of their season�s best result which saw Nico Hulkenberg and Paul di Resta coming fifth and seventh at Valencia. The effort got the Silverstone-based outfit 16 points, pushing their tally to 44 and one less than the seventh-placed Williams.
�We are only one point shy of Williams right now and 16 points away from Sauber, who have had podium finishes. So we are getting there,� Mallya was quoted as saying by the official F1 website.
�We are definitely on target. I want to finish fifth in the constructors� championship this year and - fingers crossed - it looks like we�re getting there,� he said referring to sixth-placed Sauber. Mercedes is fifth on 92 points.
Mallya was happy with the VJM05�s pace and rued the missed opportunity in Canada two weeks ago.
�Speaking frankly, we should have had the same or a similar result in Canada. But there we completely miscalculated the tyre behaviour.
�We ran the tyres too hot and subsequent analysis confirmed that this was a mistake on our part. We all agreed that it was a mistake and without it we would have left Montreal with a better result, possibly even a double points finish. But that is Formula 1. There is always an element of unpredictability,� he said.
The team had managed sixth place in 2011.
