Force India had targeted Renault's fifth position in the championship standings earlier in the season before the Enstone-based squad pulled clear. 

Force India has 47 points to its credit - by far its best showing under the ownership of Dr. Vijay Mallya, but instead of going on the attack against Renault, the team are having to cast one eye on the resurgent Williams 16 points team behind.

"Germany was very disappointing for the team but I see it as a blip rather than anything more significant," Mallya said with reference to Adrian Sutil and Tonio Liuzzi finishing out of the points. "It started very well, of course, with Adrian P1 in FP1, but after that we didn't get to grips with the track and one issue led directly into the next. 

"Fortunately it was only the second time this year we have missed out on the points and - more importantly - we did not lose any ground to our main rivals so we got off lightly, all things considered. However this clearly cannot happen again as the race... in the championship is closer than ever now and we need to finish with at least one car in the points at each race from now on.

"We can however be confident that we have enough strength in current performance and the new developments coming. On Friday we will test the blown diffuser, which we believe will give us a big step forward. We will analyse the findings and any data will be fed back into the programme for the second half of the year. Similarly, we have some new developments on the front of the floor.

"This year we have a much more balanced car over all types of tracks and, while we would look forward to Spa and Monza as high speed tracks that should suit us better, I think we will hold our own in Hungary."