09 Oct 2012

Dr Mallya, last weekend the team scored points in Japan for the first time. How would you sum up the performance?
It was a decent weekend for Nico and a good recovery drive considering the issues we had on Saturday morning. It was unfortunate to have the grid penalty for the gearbox change, but I think seventh place was a fair result given our pace during the weekend. On the other side of the garage we underachieved with Paul, but it was not his fault. With the clutch issue at the beginning of the race he fell back significantly and his race was hurt badly as a result. If we had done a little better and had two cars in the points we would have been a bit closer to Sauber now.

Last year the team came on very strong at the close of the season – can we expect the same this year?
I think we are having a strong end to the season already. We have scored points in the last four races, including two fourth places, and we’ve already scored more points than we did during the whole of last year.  Our car will suit some tracks more than others, but as long as we keep picking up the points we can keep the pressure on the teams around us. Korea should be good for us and hopefully Abu Dhabi and India.

As you say, both drivers have been close to the podium this year – that must be the goal in the final five races…
A podium has been goal since the start of the year. It’s what we need if we are to get closer to sixth in the championship. We’ve got two very competitive drivers and they’ve shown already that either one of them is capable of doing it under the right conditions. With five races to go there is still plenty to play for and we won’t give up until the chequered flag drops in Brazil.

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