Force India has put ten points between itself and Williams in the fight for fourth in the constructors' standings after an excellent start preluded a feisty run to seventh and eighth in the Japanese Grand Prix.

Getting away from fifth and ninth on the grid, Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg produced superb starts to run third and sixth initially and though it wasn't enough to contain the faster Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull machinery, it would see the pair consolidate a maximum result of seventh and eighth respectively.

Though Williams also got both of its cars into the points in ninth and tenth, Force India has put nonetheless put some daylight between itself and its fellow British based team, while Perez is one point shy of seventh place Valtteri Bottas in the drivers' reckoning too.

“I enjoyed myself today and I feel we made all the right decisions during the race,” Perez said. “The start was good fun – I had a clean run going into turn one and ended up in third place. I tried my best to hold on to the position, but I knew it would be difficult to keep some very quick cars behind me so I needed to be sensible and choose my battles.

“Our car was very quick today and the two-stop strategy was definitely the correct one for us. It meant we needed to overtake the Williams cars on the track because they were on a different strategy, but fortunately I could make the moves on them very quickly.

“The end of the race, after all the pit stops, was just a case of looking after the tyres and keeping out of trouble. We scored some very useful points today – we need to keep doing the same in the final four races.”
Read more at http://www.crash.net/f1/news/234281/...yJ3kFQm8dkM.99