With four races to go and his team losing the steam in the latter half of the season, no-points in the previous two races showing that, Sahara Force India team principal Vijay Mallya believes that team Sauber is catching up with his team for the sixth spot in the constructors’ championship and so Force India need to pull-up their socks.
Sahara Force India’s two drivers — Paul di Resta (11th on drivers’ list with 36 points) and Adrian Sutil (12th with 26) have combined to 62 points for the team. Sauber on the hand are on a good recent run with 28 points in last two races at Korea and Japan and which has given them 45 points. The co-owner of Force India, Mallya believes that tyre change has hit them hard.
“Tyre changes have been more than detrimental to our chances. We have dedicated all our R&D tools to the 2014 car, so we are handicapped in a sense. We have not been able to put our best performance at the stage. It is a concern we are addressing and the guys are working hard to sort out the issues. ItRs s all a matter of finding the right balance with the car - when we do that, we will be back among the points. But at this time, Sauber are doing well and they are an in-form team. We need to improve our performance to hold off the threat from Sauber. It’s a wake-up call for us. I am confident that we will come up with improvements. But hopefully whatever we have suffered this season will be a good investment for next year’s car,” Mallya told reporters.
Regarding the uncertainty over the Indian GP, Mallya is confident of the event returning to BIC in 2015. “Today I met the organizing head Jaypee Gaur and he is very confident about the event returning to India. As far as I am concerned, I believe we should have it back. The official reason communicated to me was the scheduling issues involving the 2014 season. I believe the amount of potential this country offers and the kind of world class facilities we have, I am confident of 2015 race,” Mallya reasoned which is quite opposite to the cause raised by Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone. Ecclestone had said that the reason to drop Indian GP from the 2014 calendar was political and is supposed to involve costing and taxation issues.