Mallya: Force India must do more

Vijay Mallya: Warning for his team

Force India boss Vijay Mallya has admitted his team need to start maximising their car's potential soon to avoid being cut adrift in the battle for a higher finish in the Constructors' Championship.

Although the Silverstone-based outfit have scored more than double the amount of points so far this season than at this stage last year - 28 to 10 - they are already 30 points behind Sauber, who currently occupy the sixth place they finished in at the end of 2011.

Force India are the only team in the top eight in the standings yet to finish on the podium this year and ahead of this weekend's race in Valencia Mallya has called on the outfit to "lift our game" in response to the bigger steps forward made by rivals Sauber and Williams in particular.

"I think Canada showed once again that Formula 1 is hard to predict at the moment," he said. "It's seriously competitive with seven different winners in seven races, all of which is great for the sport - I would certainly go along with that.

"But while it's hard to predict, we still need to lift our game, especially if we want to target fifth or sixth in the constructors' championship. Yes, we've had one of our best starts to a season ever in terms of points scored, but the teams around us have also performed exceptionally well.

"The teams that we have been comparable with in the past few years like Sauber and Williams have been on the podium, and I'm sure our time will come, as long as we get things right.

"It's something we need to do sooner rather than later because we are quickly approaching the midway point of the season. I hope we can recapture our form in Valencia, return to the points and demonstrate our potential."

After scoring a season-high haul of 10 points at the previous round in Monaco, Force India's Canadian weekend started well as Paul di Resta qualified eighth and then ran fifth in the early stages. However, the Scot soon began to suffer high degradation on the supersoft tyres and ultimately finished 11th after then struggling for speed relative to the cars around him on the soft tyres.

Mallya though believes the VJM05 is a strong package and the team head into the European GP with an understanding of what went wrong in race conditions in Montreal.

"Looking back on Canada it's fair to say that we have mixed emotions. We were disappointed with the overall outcome, but take the positives from knowing that we did have a quick car for most of the weekend," the Indian added.

"After a promising start to the race when Paul ran as high as fifth, everything dropped off and we underachieved. We have looked into the issues we had in the race and believe we understand why we lost out."