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Priority is garnering first points on merit: Mallya

Kunal Diwan

Fisichella finished sixth in Sunday’s first testing
Sebastian Vettel clocked the day’s best lap time

Jerez de la Frontera: Force India owner Vijay Mallya has said that garnering first points “on merit and not by default” would be the priority of his team this coming Formula One season.

Speaking at the Circuito de Jerez during the second day of pre-season testing, Mr. Mallya said on Monday that snags in a new car were nothing out of the way.

“Both Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil have said that the new car — the VJM02 —is very promising. That’s good, because if the car’s not good, they won’t risk raising expectations by saying something like this. Speed as well as reliability will be our focus and there will be no excuses for not getting results this season,” he said.

Earlier on Sunday, new horses under the hood failed to gallop for Force India on its first full day of testing.

Fisichella whipped the brand new VJM02 to a sixth-best time of 1:21:584 in a field of eight drivers. The car experienced some downtime during its initial runs due to snags in the fuel system.

“It is a bit frustrating because we were able to complete only 31 laps today (on Sunday). But I’m quite surprised and happy at the behaviour of the car…there was much more consistency while braking and more stability around the corners,” said Fisichella later.

Asked if he considered the relatively late debut of the VJM02 a disadvantage, Fisichella said that the team would have to make the best of the limited testing time it had at its disposal.

The Italian finished sixth in order in the eight-team race under overcast conditions which also saw frequent red flags at the 4.428 km long Jerez de La Frontane circuit. Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel clocked the day’s best lap time of 1:19:055 besides finishing a maximum of 87 laps.

Ferrari’s Felipe Massa finished with the second best time of 1:20.330.

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