Inside Line: We head to Budapest in a sombre mood

Force India team boss Vijay Mallya looks ahead to the Hungarian Grand Prix, with his team on a resurgent path amid the passing of their former reserve driver Jules Bianchi.

Vijay Mallya: “We head to Budapest in a sombre mood after the events of the weekend. The thoughts of everyone at Sahara Force India are with the friends and family of Jules Bianchi. We had the pleasure of working with Jules during 2012 and he left a strong impression on everyone in the team. We came to know an outstanding young man and a tremendous talent who was destined for great things in Formula One. The world has lost a true racer and we have all lost a friend.

“It will be hard to get back to business, but we go to Hungary looking to build on our competitive showing at Silverstone. The debut of the b-spec car met our expectations and has delivered the performance step we anticipated. It’s a boost for everyone in the team and we are moving in a good direction for the second half of the season. Over the next few races we will work hard to extract even more performance and build on this momentum.

“The double points finish at Silverstone has consolidated our fifth place in the Championship. We’ve picked up 28 points from the last four races and there is a good opportunity to score more points in Budapest. At the start of the year we said we would target fifth place in the standings and that’s certainly an achievable goal. We are now looking at the teams ahead of us and will try and close the gap further.”