Mallya upbeat about Force India progress since the Monaco Grand Prix

Adrian Sutil gave his team its best result of the season at the Nurburgring, after finishing in sixth position on merit, even beating both the Mercedes drivers.

"We showed great promise actually from Monaco onwards," said Mallya, whose team uses Mercedes engines, on his team's website on Tuesday. "We were competitive in Canada, where at one stage Paul was running fifth or sixth.

"Then both the drivers had moments and did not finish. In Valencia Adrian scored points, and at Silverstone once again there was no reason why both cars should not have finished in the points, but we just messed it up on the pit wall. Everything came together in Germany."

He added: "For Adrian to finish sixth, in front of both Mercedes cars, we have every reason to be very proud. Unfortunately Paul had this incident with Nick Heidfeld, otherwise he would have been in the points as well. We've had our fair share of bad luck, so I hope that stops now!

"What happened to Paul was clearly bad luck, no fault of his at all. Both drivers have said they are very happy with the car, happy with the team, and I was pretty happy to see a greatly improved step up in performance on the pit wall today. The strategy was planned right and executed right, so I'm pleased."

Mallya reckons Force India can look forward to another strong weekend in Hungary, with more developments in the pipeline for later on.

"We have a lot more downforce than we did, so I feel quite confident that we can put up a good show," he said. "We have a small development for Hungary, we have a special Monza package, and we want to do some serious development in time for Singapore and beyond for the flyaway races. So I'm greatly encouraged."