Neither their new aero package nor Kevin Pietersen's presence could inspire Force India to break their points jinx though Giancarlo Fisichella drove a consistent race to finish 10th in the British Grand Prix at Silverstone on Sunday.
Fisichella's German teammate Adrian Sutil finished 17th.
Finishing inside the top eight was not an easy task considering their failure to make it to Saturday's second qualifying session, but Fisichella, to his credit, drove a consistent race for a mid-field finish.
Sutil's race was actually doomed right at the start with the German starting from the pit lane after the chassis of his car, damaged in Saturday's qualifying session, was changed.
Earlier, former England cricket captain Pietersen, who plays for Vijay Mallya-owned Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League, visited the team ahead of the ace.
An impressive early stint, bold overtaking moves and an aggressive pit stop-strategy helped Fisichella move up six places from his starting position to end the race under two seconds from a points-scoring eighth position.
Force India had elected for a one-stop strategy for Sutil and the German, for the second race in succession, enjoyed a close battle with close friend Lewis Hamilton, finishing just over a second from the reigning World champion.
Despite coming close to scoring the elusive points and still falling shy of it, Fisichella was happy with the race.
"A top 10 finish was our target this weekend. We thought it would be difficult but actually today was a very good race for me and we achieved the maximum we could do," he said.
"Perhaps we could have scored points if we'd started higher as eighth was just in front of me and at the end I was quicker than Kimi (Raikkonen) and Timo (Glock). It's a great step forward and I'm really looking forward to the next races now. The team did a fantastic job so we need to continue this," added the Italian.
Sutil admitted he never really stood any chance and would take the 17th finish.
"I was really just driving around without much chance of overtaking anyone so it was a little boring, but it's another finish at least. Let's move onto Germany where I hope I can really take advantage of the new parts we had this weekend," he said.
