Force India eyes better qualification on ‘kinder’ track

“I hope that France will be kinder to us than Monaco and Canada have been,” Kolles says, almost wishfully.

He, however, takes the positives from the last two races and said both the drivers did well within limitations.

“We have had some problems, for sure, but overall the pace and performance have been good, even if the results have not been there. In the races both drivers have shown they can compete with the group in front and if we can qualify higher up then we stand a better chance of finishing higher. From the drivers’ point of view, Giancarlo has been doing a good job, as expected from someone of his experience, and Adrian has reacted to this,” he said.

Chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne believes the Formula One caravan will be back to a standard race in France.

“Magny-Cours is a more standard circuit compared to the last couple of tracks in Monte Carlo and Montreal, which are both unique. We will not introduce any major changes for this race, the main reason being we are working on a large package of updates for the Silverstone test following this race and the British Grand Prix itself,” said the Englishman.

“We were not at the test in Barcelona as the logistics for us to test immediately after the flyaway Canada race were very difficult, so we elected to test at Silverstone for one day instead. Obviously we have had some reliability items on the gearbox, so we had a large programme of work aimed at this,” Gascoyne said.

Looking ahead to Sunday, Gascoyne said he was expecting a double finish.

“Overall the main aim for the French Grand Prix has to be to have a two-car finish. Canada and Monaco were disappointing as they are races where you can easily pick up places, with safety cars and so on, but we didn’t get either cars to the flag.

“Our race pace is clearly more competitive now but at the moment we make life difficult for ourselves by starting at the back. We really have to address this as quickly as possible,” he said.