Force India team boss Otmar Szafnauer believes the squad can still amass enough points to overhaul McLaren in this year’s Formula 1 Constructors’ Championship.
Force India was in the battle for fourth in the standings mid-season but relinquished the points it had earned as part of the convoluted process in which it was takeover by the Racing Point consortium.
Force India started from scratch and scored 32 points across successive events in Belgium and Italy, as it set itself the target of beating McLaren to sixth.
The team’s progress has slowed in recent Grands Prix and the 15-point gap between the pair heading to the American rounds was maintained, via Stoffel Vandoorne’s eighth place in Mexico.
Szafnauer, though, has stressed that Force India must continue to believe it can claw away at the deficit.
“After a disappointing outcome in Mexico, there’s even more emphasis on the final two races,” he said.
“We still have our eye on sixth place in the championship, but it’s a much bigger challenge now.
“We are 15 points away from our target and overcoming this deficit won’t be easy.
“We will certainly give it our best shot, continue working hard, but we will need to deliver perfect weekends and perhaps benefit from some good fortune along the way.”
Sergio Perez’s prospects of finishing as the ‘best of the rest’ for a third year in a row have also taken a hit, with the Mexican now 12 points down on Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg.
Perez accepts he needs a “strong weekend” in Brazil in order to stand a chance of recouping the ground he has relinquished in recent events.
“The circuit is a real drivers’ track: it’s fun to drive, but it’s pretty bumpy,” he said of Interlagos.
“It reminds me a bit of a karting circuit in some ways. You need a car that is stable at the rear, with not much understeer, so that you can make the most of all the changes of direction in the middle sector.
“The weather can also be interesting: it can be very warm and humid and it rains often, and I enjoy this unpredictability.
“We had a couple of difficult races in Austin and Mexico, where we didn’t maximise our potential.
“We’ve missed out on good points, especially in Mexico. I’m still aiming to finish as “best of the rest” in the Drivers’ Championship and I need a strong weekend to make up the points we have missed recently.”
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