Fernley welcomes 13-point lead over Lotus, but not writing rival off
Friday 11 September 2015 09:15, UK
Force India are going to have to "fight like hell" to secure fifth place in the Constructors' Championship ahead of Lotus, according to Bob Fernley.
Vijay Mallya's team regained the position from their Enstone rivals via a bumper 14-point haul in the Italian GP - the team's highest of the season - at a race in which both Lotus cars retired on the first lap.
Force India now hold a 13-point cushion in fifth place heading into the final seven flyaway rounds, but deputy team boss Fernley is taking nothing for granted.
"It was an optimum race finish for us so you can't fault it," he told Sky Sports after Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg finished sixth and seventh respectively at Monza.
"Lotus are a good team and it's a good car, so we're going to have to fight like hell for it.
"From our point of view it's nice to have a little bit of a cushion. It's not going to be easy but we'll fight them all the way."
One area Fernley says the team do need to work on ahead of next weekend's Singapore GP is the set-up on Hulkenberg's VJM08 after the German suffered rear-tyre wear problems at Monza.
"It was definitely a balance issue for Nico," he added.
"He also identified it slightly in P3, but because it was such a disjointed session we couldn't really get to the bottom of it. So we need to look at it and sort it out for him for Singapore."
