Now that Force India has established itself as a “force” to be reckoned with, their expectations for next year should be rightfully high.
Of course, you can’t expect to leapfrog the likes of Mercedes, or even Ferrari and Williams for that matter, but you certainly can challenge Red Bull and who knows, maybe Williams will leave itself vulnerable too, until the 2017 shakeup happens.
Force India finished a best-ever fifth overall in the 2015 Constructors Standings and Mexican driver Sergio Perez thinks his team is set to take yet another important step.
“Finishing off the season the way we did provides us with a much stronger platform for next year,” said Perez. “We’re expecting other teams to move up. You don’t know what will happen with Lotus/Renault, McLaren-Honda, those kind of teams, but we expect them to be up there fighting us.”
Perez’s expectations seem realistic though, and by being genuinely aware that both Renault and McLaren could theoretically rival Force India is actually a good thing. You need to know who you’re racing against.
“I understand to move up to fourth is a big ask, but we have to be aiming for Red Bull and Williams,” added the Mexican. “But I believe in the team and believe it can be a fantastic season next year.”
Without seeming too naive, we could speculate that in 2016, Force India might be capable of surpassing both Red Bull and Williams, thus becoming F1’s third-best team, which would be a tremendous accomplishment. Though if we were to be more grounded, we’d urge you to not put any money down on that happening.
What we can indeed expect is for Mercedes to be dominant yet again, for Ferrari to keep improving and fortunately for fans, for the middle of the pack to be a lot stronger than it was this year.
Story references: autosport
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