Vijay Mallya: McLaren still catchable

Vijay Mallya

Force India Team Principal Vijay Mallya believes that beating McLaren for 5th place in the Constructor’s Championship is still possible.

Force India, who are currently five points behind the McLaren team, were leading the championship race up until the German Grand Prix in July.

Force India excelled with their performances and consistently scored points while Mclaren had a disastrous start to their 2013 season. But for the last 4 races, Force India scored only 2 points whereas McLaren stepped up their performance to score 29 points.

Mallya believes his team will do well in the upcoming races.

He said: “It is going to be a close fight, but the good news is that McLaren still aren’t that far ahead. “They only scored one point in Monza, so they are definitely catchable. We need to perform better ourselves, that’s very clear.

“We’re working hard to find more performance, but at the same time we’ve made it quite clear that we will not compromise next year’s programme. It’s always a balancing act, but we know what we need to do.

“Absolutely, we’ve been strong in Singapore, especially last year. Hopefully that will continue this year, but we know we’ve got to get on top of the tyres to unleash the potential of the car. Points must be the target for this weekend to keep up our momentum in the championship fight.”