Vijay Mallya pleased with Nico Hulkenberg's fifth place at Monaco Grand Prix

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Nico Hulkenberg

Force India team principal Vijay Mallya was happy with Nico Hulkenberg’s performance,after the highly rated German finished fifth at the Monaco Grand Prix.With overtaking difficult at the Principality, Hulkenberg was expecting a tough race from 11th on the grid. However, the 26-year old made the most of others' misfortunes along with a breathtaking move at Portier corner over Kevin Magnussen, to equal his best ever result of the season.

"Today's race equals our best ever result in Monaco, so I am obviously very pleased about Nico's performance," the 58 year old said. "He drove a very clean and strong race, and was able to withstand incredible pressure in the last 20 laps to finish fifth despite being on very old tyres.”"He also pulled off one of the best overtaking moves of this season, so I think he will remember this day for a long time," he added.Hulkenberg was pleased with the result after driving 51 laps on a set of supersoft tyres.“Ten points today is a great reward after such a difficult race. The last twenty laps were really tricky because my supersoft tyres were at the end of their life, and it was hard to hold off the cars behind me and stay away from the barriers," Hulkenberg said after the race."There were some enjoyable moments in the race, especially my move on Magnussen. He had to let the Toro Rosso back through and he lost a bit of momentum,so I saw my opportunity to stick my nose down the inside of turn eight. On a track like Monaco, it gives you a big smile to make the move stick," he added.There were lesser smiling faces on the other side of the garage after a premature end to Sergio Perez's race. The Mexican said he was simply unlucky to collide with his former teammate Jenson Button.“I was on the racing line and ahead of Jenson [Button] when he clipped my rear wheel and spun me around into the barriers. I did not expect him to be there as there wasn't really any space for another car there. It was very unlucky," The Mexican explained.Nevertheless, the 24 year old took encouragement from Hulkenberg's fine fifth place result."It is disappointing that we lost a big chance to score a good amount of points, but the car felt much better here than in Spain, as shown by Nico’s result. This is a very positive signal looking ahead to Montreal," he ended on a positive note.

by Rachit Thukral