Giancarlo Fisichella's Barcelona top ten shows what is possible, but team targets improved qualifying in Turkey.
Having taken its first top ten finish of the season courtesy of Giancarlo Fisichella last time out in Barcelona, Force India has a taste of what may be possible this season - but acknowledges that things could be even better if its gets a handle on qualifying.
Both Fisichella and team-mate Adrian Sutil showed good pace during free practice for the Spanish Grand Prix, but again failed to break out of the first group when qualifying came around. With no major improvements coming for the VJM01 this weekend in Turkey, the team is hoping that it can work out what went wrong in Barcelona in order to get one or both pilots through into Q2 and establish a platform to repeat Fisichella's tenth place from round four.
"The VJM01 is very good in high speed turns - we performed very well, for example, in sector one in Barcelona - so I think the car will go well in Istanbul," chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne reasoned, "Traditionally too, we have has some success in Turkey and, as we know the car is reliable, we should look to have a good weekend.
"We have no specific updates on the car, and will be using basically the same spec we raced in Barcelona as we are concentrating on development for Monaco and Canada - both of which we have specific packages for.
'One item to emerge in Barcelona was that the free practice and race form was relatively good, but we dropped a long way off in qualifying. It was clear that, on Saturday, fuel corrected, we couldn't get anywhere near the times we were able to do on Friday, even though the track was clearly much quicker. We dropped the ball and we have to make sure we don't do that in Turkey.
"We have looked at the reasons and have identified some areas we can improve. I don't see any reason why the qualifying form we showed in the first three races - where we were very close to getting into Q2 - cannot be replicated in Istanbul. That has to be the aim now.
"Overall, we need to get two cars to the finish, with two strong race performances. We've shown with Giancarlo that we can pick up points if they're available and stay with the other runners, and we have to make sure we do that in Turkey too."
Fisichella agrees that Saturday afternoon holds the key to Force India's race performance, but remains upbeat about the team's general form.
"We are doing better than we expected at the moment as, apart from Australia, we have finished every race in the top twelve," the Italian pointed out, "We are still a young team, but everyone is getting more confident with every race and getting in the top ten in Spain was our best finishing position of the year so far.
"The car balance was good and our second stint in the race was particularly encouraging. We need to improve in qualifying now, as we had some problems with reduced grip and had to do two flying laps, which isn't ideal. We have spent a lot of time analysing why the performance drops from practice to qualifying, and I am hopeful we will not have the same problems again in Turkey.
"Of course, at the moment, the field is so close that one tenth of a second can mean the difference between Q2 and just missing out, so we have to make sure we are completely on top of the game."
