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Plenty more points finishes to come - Mallya

The Force Indias were promoted to the points after the Saubers were disqualified in Australia © Sutton Images

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• Drivers:
• Paul di Resta
• |
• Vijay Mallya
• |
• Adrian Sutil

• Teams:
• Racing Point

Force India boss Vijay Mallya believes his team is in a position to repeat its double point-scoring performance at the Australian Grand Prix over the course of the season.

Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta finished ninth and tenth at Albert Park after gaining two positions each when the Saubers were disqualified. Over the course of the weekend the cars looked solid if not spectacular, qualifying 16th and 14th behind rivals Toro Rosso and Sauber. Nevertheless Mallya is confident the VJM04 is strong over a race distance and will prove itself with more points finishes at upcoming races.

"We were confident about our reliability ahead of the first race in Australia, but we were eager to continue work on improving our race pace during the free practice sessions," he said. "We can now expect our cars to finish among the top 10 and in the points. Both drivers drove exceptionally well and to score points from the start of the season is very encouraging. We shall be able to make some further developments to our race pace over the coming weekends, although I'm pleased with the progress of the VJM04 and all the hard work by the team at the factory. I am very much looking forward to the next race where I'd dearly like to see both cars coming home in the points once again.

He added that Malaysia in particular offered a chance for a significant points haul.

"I think we have every reason to be confident, but the weather often plays a big role over the Malaysian weekend," he said. "Adrian drove a great race there last year and brought home 10 championship points, so we have something good to build on. The VJM04 has shown us that we are capable of being in the points already, so let's hope we have a clean race this week with no incidents."

Sutil is also hoping he can build on his result from last year.

"Malaysia was a great race last year, one of my best results, so I am really looking forward to racing there again," he said. "It's a challenging circuit and with a good balance on the car you can definitely enjoy driving it. It is also usually an interesting weekend from a strategy point of view because you don't know how the rain is going to affect the teams, so it is challenging, but exciting too."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.