Force India still hunting Red Bull for fourth in Formula 1 points

Having kept Red Bull in its sights with its out-of-date A-spec car even before its new machine arrived ahead of the British GP, Force India's goal was to overhaul Christian Horner's outfit.

The gap stood at 24 points after Silverstone, but Red Bull then secured its best result of the year at the Hungaroring with Daniil Kvyat second and Daniel Ricciardo third.

That coincided with a tumultuous weekend for Force India as Nico Hulkenberg retired with a dramatic front-wing failure and team-mate Sergio Perez soon followed suit with a brake issue, having rolled on Friday after a suspension breakage.

Force India is now 57 points behind Red Bull, but deputy team principal Bob Fernley is still confident his team can respond.

LEADING F1 CONSTRUCTORS' STANDINGS:

"Our target was very clear as we finished Silverstone, which was to challenge - if we could - Red Bull for fourth place," Fernley told AUTOSPORT.

"But they had a very strong showing in Hungary, and obviously piled on a significant amount of points.

"I don't think we should lose sight of that objective, but it's going to be a bit tougher now than it was after Silverstone.

"We should certainly make sure we consolidate fifth place. That's the minimum expectation the team would have, but we shouldn't lose sight of the goal of fourth.

"There are still nine races to go, and some of the circuits coming up are going to be very favourable to Force India, and less so for Red Bull, who I think had their best circuit at Hungary.

"I think we're going to be strong throughout now, certainly at Spa, Monza and Singapore.

"In fact, I think we're going to be challenging all the way through to be honest with you."

Fernley believes Force India has a strong platform on which to build its evolution for 2016.

"It's been a challenging first half of the season, but in all fairness very rewarding," he added.

"We have to give great credit to our track engineers, our basic engineering team, who managed to pull an underperforming car in the A-spec through to fifth place in the championship.

"Silverstone very clearly showed the potential of the B-spec, and if you take the underlying performance of that car even in Hungary, which is not one of our strongest circuits, it was very, very encouraging.

"So the second half of the season is going to be very exciting for us, and like everybody else we're seeing the '16 car as an evolution of the '15 car, so we will just continue working on it throughout the rest of the year."