Dr. Vijay Mallya (IND) Force India F1 Team Owner. Formula One World Championship, Rd 16, Brazilian Grand Prix, Race Day, Interlagos, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Sunday, 18 October 2009 Vitantonio Liuzzi (ITA) Force India F1 VJM03 Formula One World Championship, Rd 1, Bahrain Grand Prix, Race, Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir, Bahrain, Sunday, 14 March 2010 Adrian Sutil (GER) Force India F1 on the grid. Formula One World Championship, Rd 1, Bahrain Grand Prix, Race Day, Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir, Bahrain, Sunday, 14 March 2010 Dr. Vijay Mallya (IND) Force India F1 Team Owner with guests on the grid. Formula One World Championship, Rd 1, Bahrain Grand Prix, Race Day, Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir, Bahrain, Sunday, 14 March 2010
With Adrian Sutil qualifying tenth and team mate Vitantonio Liuzzi taking home two points after finishing the race ninth, Force India planted themselves firmly in the midfield at the Bahrain season opener last weekend. Following the Sakhir event, team principal Dr Vijay Mallya is confident they’ll continue to score points as the season progresses and is even hopeful of clinching the odd podium…
Q: Overall Bahrain was a good first weekend, with a car in the top 10 in both qualifying and the race. How do you view it?
Vijay Mallya: I'm obviously very pleased, despite what happened to Adrian at the start. For this team, given our history and background, to score points in the first race is quite a remarkable effort. But I think even more so two things have made a very significant impression on me. First is our race pace. I think that's a huge statement for a relatively small team like us. The second is there's been so much spoken about Tonio. He's not just proved himself, but I think he drove beautifully. He preserved his tyres well, he was quick, and he brought the car home in the points. So all credit goes to Tonio.
Q: Sutil obviously had a problem at the start, but he drove very well after that…
VM: Adrian was unlucky. Nevertheless, he did an outstanding job in qualifying, and of course in the previous practice sessions he was always very quick, always very confident. Having dropped down to 21st place to work his way up to 12th position was a great achievement. He also made the soft tyres last for longer than we would otherwise have expected and he also clocked the second fastest lap time, behind Alonso. I think overall I have every reason to be pleased about the team's performance. And we have another update coming for Melbourne.
Q: Were you especially pleased to get a car into Q3 at the first race?
VM: You've got to be amongst the top 10 to score points to begin with. With the big four - McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull - for me to say that we will run ahead of them sounds ambitious. But to be knocking on their doors and ahead of the rest is something I can be very pleased about.
Q: Generally, you are happy that the upward progress has continued?
VM: The way we are today I think we're very competitive, and everything is going to plan. In 2009 I said we should score some points occasionally, and we scored 13, which was respectable. This year I said we should score points regularly. We have opened our account in the first race and I think the opportunity is wide open for us to now score points regularly. I wouldn't be surprised if we could target the odd podium or two. And next year we should hopefully strongly target podium finishes.
Q: Obviously this was the first race with the new no refuelling rules. How do you think it panned out?
VM: It's hard to tell from one race and everybody was faced with a guessing game. We didn't know how long the tyres would last in the race, and there was no data to really base any proper judgement on. We need to give the regulations a chance to prove themselves and for people to learn how to use them. To change everything after just one race is a knee-jerk reaction, let's see how it goes in Australia and Malaysia and make an informed decision about whether we do need to react to improve the Formula One show. If we do then at least we have more information to make a proper call.
Source:Formula1.com
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