Vijay Mallya was clearly miffed by comments made by Renault Managing Director Cyril Abiteboul at the launch of the Enstone outfit's 2017 contender yesterday.

The Frenchman suggested that financial constraints meant that as the 2017 'arms race' developed, Force India would be one of the team left behind as the manufacturer teams moved forward.

"I have been in a small team," he told Autosport, referring to his time with Caterham, "it was not too successful, and I really feel for the teams who have to keep money in mind. Resources will be very difficult for the small teams.

"I believe most of the car build budget of Force India will be gone by now," he claimed, "just to cope with the new regulations. That is something that we are taking into account with the level of resources that we have, we should be easily capable of beating teams like Haas and Force India and so on."

Speaking at today's launch of his own team's car at Silverstone, Mallya was clearly riled by Abiteboul's comments.

"I read an article this morning that Cyril Abiteboul of Renault said that poor teams such as Force India were going to suffer in this arms race," he told the audience.

"Well, good luck to him," he continued. "But he might have to eat his words. It's not the amount of arms you have, it's the quality of your weaponry."

"If we did not dream big, we would not have finished fourth in the world championship last year," he added. "To be in the company of Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari is a huge accomplishment in itself. We will always dream big, we have never ever had conversations, even in private, that we are not going to break into the top three. That is certainly going to be our objective. We will give it our best shot."

Check out our Force India VJM10 gallery, here.