Sahara Force India revealed its new car today at a freezing cold Silverstone, with a young dynamic driver line up and an ambitious target; to attain fifth place in the constructors’ championship. Paul di Resta, Nico Hulkenberg and third driver Jules Bianchi look a potent force, with Force India’s proven system of developing young drivers through the Friday morning practice sessions working on several levels. It helps to bring through young drivers and to give them valuable track time, helping them to get race sharp and it puts constant pressure on the race drivers, which keeps them sharp and it More…

Former Force India driver Adrian Sutil has been in Munich this week appearing before public prosecutors charged with grievous bodily harm surrounding an incident with the co-owner of the Lotus F1 team in a Shanghai nightclub last April, and on Tuesday the court found the German driver guilty and gave him an 18-month suspended sentence. The 29-year-old was also handed a 200,000 euro (£166,139) fine, which will be paid to charities, according to the BBC. The two-day trial had centred around an incident following last year’s Chinese Grand Prix when Sutil had been in a nightclub celebrating his close friend More…

Today the Sahara Force India team confirmed the story which we first ran during the Brazil GP weekend: that Jules Bianchi will become its third driver. The 22 year old Frenchman will have the opportunity to drive on at least nine Grand Prix weekends in the Friday morning practice session. He will join a small but growing number of young drivers getting some regular track time on Fridays, including Williams’ Valtteri Bottas and Lotus’ Jerome D’Ambrosio. Caterham are likely to have someone in that role and Marussia has also made use of the Friday morning opportunity too. It’s the right More…

Another midfield team has unveiled its driver line up for next year, but unlike Toro Rosso, which sacked both incumbents this week, Sahara Force India has gone with the line up which was predicted in the final third of this season. Paul di Resta keeps his seat for another year and Nico Hulkenberg steps up from reserve driver to race driver alongside him. This means that there is no place for Adrian Sutil, who has been with the team for four seasons. Sutil’s manager was a man on a mission in Brazil, which was the tell tale indicator that this More…

Force India boss Vijay Mallya today confirmed that he has sold 42.5% of the F1 team to Sahara India Pariwar, described as “a leading promoter and patron of sports in India.” The fee is US$100 million The deal therefore values the team at $235 million (£150 million), a significant uplift on the price Mallya paid to buy the team known as Spyker. It is the same Silverstone based team which was originally known as Jordan, founded by BBC pundit Eddie Jordan. “With this investment both the Sahara India Pariwar and Dr. Mallya will own 42.5% each in the team. The More…

McLaren’s Martin Whitmarsh, Mercedes’ Ross Brawn, Virgin Racing’s Graeme Lowdon and Force India’s Robert Fearnley met face to face with 300 F1 fans at the FOTA Fans’ Forum, UK at McLaren Technology Centre to discuss topics raised by the fans and hear their points of view. Top of the agenda was fans’ concern that F1 should stay on Free to Air TV and the rumoured NewsCorp take over was discussed. The team principals also tackled the subject of F1′s green credentials, with Fearnley putting forward a slightly different tone from the others, describing F1 as “a celebration of excess.” “The More…

Spare a thought for Paul di Resta this weekend; the Scot finds himself in an unenviable position going into qualifying and the race after his car was crashed in Friday morning practice at Valencia by reserve driver Nico Hulkenberg. Di Resta did only three times laps at the end of the second session. It puts Di Resta at quite a serious disadvantage, as he has not been able to do any set up work, nor assess the new medium Pirelli tyre. As it’s a street circuit, he also has the problem of building up to the limit, where having those More…

Here is a video with Part 2 of the FOTA Fans Forum in Montreal, featuring F1 drivers Heikki Kovalainen and Nico Hulkenberg as well as Team Lotus chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne discussing the stewards’ decisions on overtakes, collisions and “racing incidents” this year and also explaining to fans why F1 changes technical rules mid season, such as the blown diffuser, part of which looks set to be banned from Silverstone onwards.

It has just been announced that Force India’s case against 1 Malaysia, the owner of Team Lotus, for infringement of intellectual property, will be heard in the High Court in London on January 16 2012. Force India is also pursuing Lotus Technical director Mike Gascoyne personally as well as Aerolab, the wind tunnel where the two teams were working on cars when the alleged IP leakage is said to have occured. This may prove to be Lotus’ third appearance in the High Court in 12 months, following the one starting two weeks today between Group Lotus and 1 Malaysia Group More…

The second official test starts on Thursday at Jerez in Spain and in the last couple of days we have had the launch of the new Virgin and Force India cars. Hispania has yet to launch, but it released some images of the car today, just in front of Force India. It also announced that it will not take part in the Jerez test but will instead test in Italy on a Pirelli filming day. Virgin held a showbiz event at the BBC TV Centre on Monday. The car is the second F1 product from the digital nerve centre at More…

With five days to go until the start of the new testing season, the worst kept secret of the winter was confirmed today when the Force India team announced that its two race drivers this season will be Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta. Williams refugee Nico Hulkenberg becomes the reserve driver. It’s a great step for Di Resta, 24, who impressed last season in his role as Friday driver and as champion of the DTM with Mercedes. The support of the Stuttgart manufacturer has been instrumental in him getting the role. Di Resta beat reigning F1 champion Sebastian Vettel More…

The Force India team has yet to decide who will drive its cars, but behind the scenes the team has made some changes to the engineering management. Dominic Harlow becomes Head of Circuit Engineering, a role which is similar in scope to that of Pat Fry in the new Ferrari set-up. In addition to his role in charge of engineering operations at the races, he takes an overview role on the design and development side. Meanwhile Andy Green moves into the technical director’s chair, replacing Mark Smith, who will soon leave the team to join his mentor Mike Gascoyne at More…

Still no word from Force India on its driver line up for the coming season. There are three jobs available; the two race drivers and the Friday/test driver. There has been speculation that the race drivers will be Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta with Williams refugee Nico Hulkenberg taking the test slot, but no confirmation. It truly is a buyer’s market for Force India at the moment. But one person for whom this does not work is Tonio Liuzzi, who has broken his silence today with an interview on Italian website 422.com. Liuzzi would not be doing this if More…

Welcome to our look-back at the key decisions which made the Monaco Grand Prix. Monaco is normally a frustrating race for team strategists. Qualifying is so important, it sets the tone for the race and only the start and the sole pit stop give any real opportunity to gain track positions. That said, a safety car at the right moment can make a big difference and this is what happened for Fernando Alonso. For the rest, the start was decisive in the battle between Robert Kubica and Sebastian Vettel, while the timing of the pit stop led to some changes More…

Today saw the penultimate launch of the ‘established’ teams in Formula 1. Force India unveiled their VJM03 to the world and tomorrow it will run for the first time in the test at Jerez. Tonio Liuzzi will drive the car for the first two days and then Adrian Sutil will take over for the final two days. Last year’s car turned out to be one of the revelations of the season on the low downforce tracks in particular. Giancarlo Fisichella stuck his car on pole in Spa and raced to second place, while Adrian Sutil got a front row slot More…

It’s rare in Formula 1 that a team gets to enjoy a moment of pure ecstasy, without something coming along to spoil it. And so it is proving for Force India, which scored a magnificent podium from pole position in yesterday’s Belgian Grand Prix, but today is having a very public internal argument about whether its podium hero Giancarlo Fisichella is moving to Ferrari for the next race. Fisichella was faster than Kimi Raikkonen in yesterday’s race and it was only because of the KERS on the Ferrari that the race swung away from him. The team could still have More…

The Force India team had an embarrassing moment this morning when a legal dispute spilled over into the paddock as German police officials tried to impound their motorhome and other assets. It relates to a dispute with a supplier over the motorhome. It happened at breakfast time and guests of team sponsor Medion were forced to go to the Williams motorhome for a coffee. The team were able to compete in both practice sessions and it has indicated that the situation has been resolved and there will be no more disruptions this weekend. Giancarlo Fisichella had a strong first practice, More…

Things are really starting to hot up now as the new season approaches and the final two tests before the first race are upon us. This week Jerez, next week Barcelona. We will know who’s looking good and who’s not in the next fortnight. The new Force India package has been launched and this team are demanding that we take them seriously. There is every reason to. They have made a very smart technical and strategic alliance with McLaren. This means that in addition to a McLaren man moving in as the CEO of Force India, they will run the More…

The news that Force India has established a five year technical collaboration with McLaren and Mercedes comes as no surprise, indeed both sides have been talking about it for some months now. But it is quite a significant move for several reasons. It marks the first time that Mercedes has supplied a second team with engines. They’ve considered it many times, but never actually gone through with it. Meanwhile Ferrari has had a very nice little business going for years supplying Toro Rosso, before that Red Bull, Spyker, Prost, Sauber. And that was in the good old days when they More…