Vijay Mallya hopeful of a better show in Singapore

Sahara Force India made an impressive start to the season, with the VJM06 proving to be a really improved car and both their drivers Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta performing exceptionally well. At one point, they were even ahead of a big team like McLaren in the team standings.

But things started going downhill for the Siverstone based team after the introduction of new tyres by Pirelli. They have managed to score just 10 points since then, with only 2 points coming in the last four races.

The last race in Monza was no different with Paul di Resta crashing in the first lap itself while Adrian Sutil had a poor race throughout before he retired in the last lap.

Team boss Vijay Mallya, however, feels that the new tyres are not the sole reason for their dip in form.

“Right through the [Italian Grand Prix] weekend we were struggling at a track that is supposed to be friendly for us. We have done well there in the past, but for some reason we just could not find the pace and could not optimise the tyre performance. We have never been so badly off in the recent past,” Mallya told Autosport.

While he admitted that the team were not at their best in Italy, he is hopeful that the Singapore Grand Prix will change the scenario in their favour.

“We have to learn a lot more about the behaviour of these tyres, and hopefully we will get on top of it before Singapore, which is also a track that is friendly towards us. But we don’t have any excuses for Italy – we were simply not good enough,” he added.