Fisichella says team need a step forward

Giancarlo Fisichella was pleased to finish the French Grand Prix, but the Italian said the Force India team need to take a step forward in order to get closer to the their rivals

The Silverstone-based squad were slowest in qualifying and in the race today, with Fisichella finishing down in 18th position, one place ahead of teammate Adrian Sutil.

And although the Italian welcomed his first race finish in four races, he said the team must make more progress.

"Our target from today's race was to get to the end of the race and we did, so I am pleased from this respect as we have not finished the last three races," said Fisichella.

"We had more reliability from the car but the pace was not as good as we would have liked at times. It was better than yesterday, but we need a step forward to move on.

"I'm looking forward to the Silverstone test now where we have some new parts that should deliver some more improvements."

Sutil was frustrated by his disappointing race, and claimed his strategy had not work out.

"We have had some better races this year," he said. "It was a bit frustrating. Both myself and Giancarlo had a very aggressive strategy to try to make up some more places in the race, but we also needed to have some luck.

"Unfortunately nothing happened in the race to other people so I had lots of times when I had to move over to let cars on the lead lap go past and got out of the rhythm.

"This was disappointing, seeing the cars passing you when you are lapping well. In the middle stint the pace was OK, it was just the strategy didn't work out in the end."