Vijay Mallya Q&A before Melbourne

In Bahrain Tonio finished ninth and ’best of the rest’ behind the eight cars from the four pacesetting teams. Were you satisfied with that?

It’s what our objective was over the winter. We set ourselves an internal objective of finishing fifth in the World Championship. I know there’s a long way to go, but it’s a right start. We’ve got a solid car to start with, and we’ve got a good base, and now it’s about the development rate for the rest of the year. It was fantastic for Tonio to have scored points for the first time since 2007. Adrian’s second fastest lap means there’s also some good for him to take out of the race too. I think we all acknowledge that last year our progress was sporadic - on some tracks we were very quick, on others not so good - so to come out this strongly is a really good step forward. With the new upgrades we have in the pipeline for Australia I can say with every faith that we can carry the momentum forward.

Paul di Resta will be driving one of the cars on Friday in Australia. What is the thinking behind that?

Paul is a very good driver and has a lot of potential. But as a third driver the question is how he can use this potential if there’s no testing in-season. This is a good solution all round, he can learn the car and the tracks in real time and therefore spend his simulator time helping to develop the car, which will be of real benefit to us. The race drivers are very supportive of the move - they’ve all been young drivers one time!

How has the reaction been in India to the team’s success?

Formula One is growing by leaps and bounds in India. Firstly they have an Indian team and now, in the form of Karun Chandhok, they have an Indian driver. The fans now have genuine interest to hold on to. Sure, people were aware of the big legends of the sport - Ferrari, Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton - but for them to have tangible, identifiable properties is the difference between a minority sport and national interest. With the Indian Grand Prix now looking very promising it’s really building - you’ve got these heroes and now you can go and watch them too. You can see the interest growing day by day, on our social networking site we’ve got more than one million followers.