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 gives the team the opportunity to constantly assess progress.

The team has changed one driver in each of the last two years but with Di Resta and Hulkenberg there could be an argument for a few seasons of stability. Bianchi will be hoping otherwise, but with less than 40 Grand Prix starts between them but a couple of years each of time in F1 the two race drivers look well matched.

Both have shown at various times speed, intelligence and the ability to be measured. Di Resta in particular impresses with his approach of building up his speed to a peak at the right moment in qualifying. Hulkenberg showed intelligence and speed in his year at Williams and his pole position in Brazil in 2010 was impressive. It wasn’t just a fluke lap on the right tyres in damp conditions, it was nine consecutive best sector times. He was on it.

For Sahara Force India to achieve fifth it is essential that the drivers deliver consistently strong performances across every race weekend. Last year was a bit peaky, with some outstanding weekends punctuated with others where opportunities were missed. Strong qualifying didn’t always lead to strong races. To get fifth, they must be looking to score points most weekends and get plenty of top 6 finishes, which won’t be easy if Mercedes improve this season.

Force India mixed it with – and beat – Mercedes at times in teh second half of last year and kept Lotus Renault behind them. To achieve fifth they will need to finish ahead of the Enstone team as well as Sauber, Toro Rosso and Williams.

The battle in the midfield looks set to be very intense.

As far as the car in concerned, Force India have a clear aerodynamic direction and the car is believed to have very encouraging numbers from the wind tunnel. It uses some of the thinking pioneered by Red Bull in terms of air flow under the nose section. For this reason, with new rules for 2012 about lowering the nose, they have gone for an ugly stepped solution as we’ve seen from Caterham and Ferrari too. At the moment, McLaren look like the odd ones out in not following the Red Bull vision.

The reason why the nose has been lowered in the rules is for safety; there was concern about a car going nose first into the side of another car and acting like a spear. By lowering the nose, they reduce the consequences of such an impact.

The other point of note from this morning’s launch is Force India’s ambitition together with the Sahara Group to go from a Premier League team to a Champions’ League team, in other words, to make the investment necessary to take on more staff, boost resources and become a top four team.

It’s being discussed with the shareholders at the moment and the management group hope to get the green light in the next few months to implement an expansion plan. The business pages tell the story of the troubles of owner Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines group, which is suffering in India. Mallya’s number two Bob Fearnley told me this morning that this does not impact the F1 business and that together with Sahara Group Mallya is focussed on setting out the vision for the development of the team in the next phase.

Here is my interview with Nico Hulkenberg from today.

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 Lewis Hamilton’s victory in that Sunday’s race. Eric Lux, the Luxembourg-born chief executive of the Genii Capital investment company that owns the team formerly known as Lotus Renault GP, had also been in attendance at the venue and sustained cuts to his neck, which Sutil has now been convicted of causing by a broken glass.

Speaking in court on Monday, Sutil had revealed he had tried to settle the row out of court with Lux and was very sorry the incident had ever occurred, reiterating that he hadn’t intended to injure him.

“I did everything to try to settle this row,” Sutil was quoted as saying by Reuters. “I am really sorry, extremely sorry. I never wanted for this to happen.”

Lux, however, in his own evidence to the court had said: “A phone call is not good enough.”

Away from the court case and Sutil had already been left in something of a career limbo, as despite a strong end to the 2012 season, Force India decided to drop him in favour of countryman Nico Hulkenberg, who impressed in the role of 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 move for Bianchi, as there were no opportunities with the current testing restrictions to get seat time at Ferrari, where the Frenchman, a protege of Nicolas Todt, has been reserve driver. With two disappointing campaigns behind him in GP2, and no F1 race seat arising from that, Todt needed to keep his boy’s career moving forward and this answers that need.

Force India have made excellent use of the Friday slot in the last two years, blooding Paul di Resta in 2010 ahead of a race debut in 2011 and assessing Nico Hulkenberg last season, which led to a race seat this year. They have a proven track record at it.

These two stories prove the value of the Friday driver opportunity. After all, going further back, both Robert Kubica and Sebastian Vettel started their F1 careers as Friday drivers.

On the face of it there’s no reason for Force India’s race driver line up to change again for a few years with two hungry, capable drivers. But both could be candidates for a Mercedes seat if Michael Schumacher retires at the end of 2012 and Force India can measure Bianchi against the race drivers, giving them an option. It also makes him more attractive to other F1 teams if they find themselves looking for a “ready to go” driver, as happens sometimes.

“I’m obviously excited to join Sahara Force India and the chance to get track time during race weekends is an important step for me,” said Bianchi. “Being regularly in a current car is the best way to learn quickly and I hope it will put me in a strong position to one day move into a race seat. The next few months will be really exciting as I get to know the team, see how they work, and prepare for my time in the car. I would like to thank everyone for believing in me and especially Sahara Force India for giving me this great opportunity.”

Importantly, Bianchi will remain part of the Ferrari Driver Academy programme, along with Sauber’s Sergio Perez. Meanwhile Ferrari is leaning more heavily on Davide Rigon as a result of Bianchi’s move to Force India.

Davide Rigon (Ferrari)

“As for Davide Rigon, he has recently extended his relationship with the Scuderia: the driver from Venice will be on call for the team for all racing and promotional activities also for the 2012 and 2013 seasons.”

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 was the line up the team had in mind. Sutil brings some budget with him from Medion and with his results and performances in the second half of the season, surely has a good chance of a seat at Williams. Sutil finished the season in 9th place in the drivers’ championship, which is the best finish of his career and the best of the rest after the drivers from the top four high-spending teams.

Sutil is fast, has sometimes been erratic, but clearly Sahara Force India think that he’s reached a plateau, whereas there is still more to come from Di Resta and Hulkenberg. It’s a young, dynamic line up and they will no doubt push each other hard next season.

The team’s engineers have had a good chance to evaluate Nico Hulkenberg this season, by running him on Friday mornings. He is a known quantity anyway from his rookie season with Williams in 2010.

“I think Paul caught the eye of everybody in the pit lane during his rookie season,” said team principal Vijay Mallya. “His speed, maturity and racecraft confirmed that we were right to believe in him and we look forward to working with him again next year.

“As for Nico, we identified him as a rising star at the end of 2010 and chose to evaluate him during the course of this season. Despite having only limited time in the car, he convinced us that he deserved a race seat for 2012.”

Mallya himself remains something of a question mark in this team. He sold almost 50% to Sahara shortly before the Indian Grand Prix and problems in other areas of his business empire have led to the suggestion within F1 circles that he may be heading out of the team in the near future, either selling the remaining shareholding to Sahara or to other investors. Whether he would keep a minority stake remains to be seen.

The team has been on a steady rise since it became Force India in 2008; 9th in the constructors’ championship in 2009, 7th last year and 6th this season.

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 Mol family’s equity will be at 15%,” said a team statement. The Mol family is the original Dutch investor which was part of the team when it was Spyker and which has retained an equity stake ever since.

The investment is an important indicator of the impact F1 is likely to have in India. It comes just a fortnight ahead of the inaugural Indian Grand Prix at Buddh International Circuit, near Delhi. Reports on Reuters suggest that ticket sales have been strong and a capacity 150,000 crowd is expected for the October 30 event.

Sahara is a big mover in sports in India, the company is the shirt sponsor of the Indian cricket team and owns a team in the IPL cricket series, as does Mallya.

The team will henceforth be known as Sahara Force India F1 team. Subrata Roy Sahara, the Chairman of Sahara India Pariwar said, “India is reaching new heights in all spheres, including sports. Formula One car racing has always remained a bastion of the western world. The advent of India in this exciting sport has remained a matter of pride for all our countrymen. I feel doubly proud that Sahara is the co-owner of India’s only F1 team and I am sure that through the Sahara Force India F1 Team, we will together bring pride and laurels to our beloved nation.”

At the same time, Team Lotus boss Tony Fernandes has cast some doubt on whether his Indian test driver Karun Chandhok will get a race opportunity at the Indian Grand Prix, as has long been speculated. Chandhok sat in for Jarno Trulli at the German Grand Prix in July, but speaking to F1.com today, Fernandes said “I’d like to see him in the car, but practically there’s no point in putting him in just for the sake of it. We have two extremely experienced race drivers and I’ve got to do what’s right for them and for the team, not for Karun or for the Indian fans.

“My heart would love to see him race there. Emotionally it makes sense, but we have to come tenth.

“But ultimately it’s not my decision. I’ve told the team it’s up to them. None of us wants to put him under even more pressure than he’s already going to be under at his home race, and the truth is we have to focus on securing tenth place. When we ran him in Germany he did what we asked him to do. He did the best job he could in a car he had hardly run in, and despite what people think, it is impossible to just jump into the cockpit and be as quick as your team mate.”

Team Lotus is currently in tenth place out of 12 teams in the Constructors’ Championship, an important position as it carries financial benefits in terms of prize money, freight and personnel travel dispensations.

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 job of F1 is to help develop the technologies, as with the V6 programme, so that we can benefit the whole economy through the manufacturers, ” he said. “Through the efforts of FOTA it would inexcusable to waste more than we need in terms of travel, but I think F1 – and maybe I’m a bit of a dinosaur – is a celebration of excess.

“We have the most powerful engines, we have the best show in motor racing, we have the best parties and the prettiest girls and we should not lose that. We are a show at the end of the day and the show must be maintained. But we can also do more than our fair share on the environmental side too. ”

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 90 minutes on Friday make a big difference when assessing how much risk to take. And he cannot dip into a database of knowledge from last season as he only did nine laps of the circuit last year.

Di Resta acknowledges that it’s a double edged sword, as without Force India’s policy of letting the reserve driver run on Friday mornings, he might not be where he is today. He performed the Friday role last season,

“It makes things tricky, but it benefited me last year being a rookie to the championship this year,” said the Scot. “It’s a team policy and I went along with it. It has not hampered me too much up to now and hopefully it won’t hamper me this weekend.

“It’s a risk. How do you tell somebody that you’ve just crashed their race car? I’ve crashed cars in the past that haven’t been mine, but not before another driver gets into the car for FP2 to prepare for a race. It’s a hard thing to accept but there’s not much that can be done.”

Di Resta needed a good result this weekend, he scored points in the first two race and hasn’t scored since. In Montreal a mistake near the end cost him another strong finish and more points.

But as with all moments of adversity, it is also an opportunity for Di Resta to show what he can do with his back to the wall. His comparison this weekend with Adrian Sutil will be even more interesting than usual. So far he’s done pretty well; he’s six to one up against Sutil in qualifying and where they’ve both finished the race he’s three to two up against the German.

Give me your predictions of what you think the margin will be in qualifying between them today and in whose favour.

EUROPEAN GRAND PRIX, Valencia, Friday Practice 2

1. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m37.968s 35
2. Lewis Hamilton McLaren 1m38.195s + 0.227 26
3. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull 1m38.265s + 0.297 31
4. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1m38.315s + 0.347 30
5. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m38.443s + 0.475 32
6. Jenson Button McLaren 1m38.483s + 0.515 30
7. Mark Webber Red Bull 1m38.531s + 0.563 26
8. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m38.981s + 1.013 33
9. Nick Heidfeld Renault 1m39.040s + 1.072 35
10. Vitaly Petrov Renault 1m39.586s + 1.618 27
11. Adrian Sutil Force India 1m39.626s + 1.658 31
12. Rubens Barrichello Williams 1m40.020s + 2.052 34
13. Pastor Maldonado Williams 1m40.301s + 2.333 34
14. Paul di Resta Force India 1m40.363s + 2.395 7
15. Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso 1m40.454s + 2.486 32
16. Sergio Perez Sauber 1m40.531s + 2.563 37
17. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber 1m42.083s + 4.115 34
18. Heikki Kovalainen Lotus 1m42.156s + 4.188 39
19. Jarno Trulli Lotus 1m42.239s + 4.271 25
20. Timo Glock Virgin 1m42.273s + 4.305 21
21. Jerome D’Ambrosio Virgin 1m42.809s + 4.841 36
22. Tonio Liuzzi HRT 1m44.460s + 6.492 29
23. Narain Karthikeyan HRT 1m46.906s + 8.938 16

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 over the termination of the licence to use the Lotus name in F1. Depending on the outcome of that hearing, another case to settle the dispute as to who is the real Lotus in F1 may follow in the Autumn.

In a briefing note to journalists, Force India says that it “believes that Aerolab Srl. may have, during the course of its contract with the team, disclosed Force India F1 Team Ltd.’s intellectual property to 1 Malaysia Racing Team Ltd. and Mike Gascoyne, with whom Aerolab Srl. was at that time working through a sister company. The intellectual property was used in the development of the Lotus T127.”

There are also proceedings in the Italian court on this matter, with the same plaintiffs plus Tony Fernandes and the director of Aerolab, Jean Claude Migeot, a former F1 designer.

1 Malaysia did not have a great deal of time to design and develop a car. It was granted an entry for 2010 on 12 September 2009, just six months before the first race of 2010.

Gascoyne had used Aerolab for wind tunnel work when he was technical director of Spyker and then briefly Force India, before he and Vijay Mallya’s team went their separate ways.

But in November, Force India became concerned when Lotus issued a photo of its design in the wind tunnel and Force India felt that there was some cross over in the front wing design in particular. At the time they also noted that the Lotus was fitted with their wind-tunnel tyres.

At the time Gascoyne pointed out that the wind tunnel model was made by Fomtech and observed, “Some of the staff had been working on different projects. And whereas you cannot copy anything or take anyone else’s IP, you can use your expertise – and you will base that on what you know and what directions you know have been happening. That is what has happened.”

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 Wirth Research, the technical partner of Virgin Racing. It is also the first since the team took on a significant shareholder and title sponsor Marussia, some of whose executives are now integrated into the engineering and management structure of the team. So important is their presence that the team is now racing under a Russian licence.

Virgin has a more stable base since the Marussia investment and now it’s really all about how good the car is. Unlike Lotus and Hispania, who have done customer back end deals, Virgin is sticking with the Xtrac hydraulics and gearbox, last year’s versions of which proved troublesome.

“We were extremely pleased to have proved our digital design process in Formula One last season and to have demonstrated that it is possible to compete at the highest level of motor sport with a car designed wholly in computer simulation,” said Wirth.

“We have addressed every single issue that troubled us last year, but in our own unique digital way. For example, the hydraulics and gearbox oil problems of last year have resulted in us doing more CFD in these areas alone than we used in the entire aero design program our first digital race-winning sportscar in 2008. In Abu Dhabi we took the opportunity to prove out these digital improvements by successfully track-testing a number of systems for the MVR-02.

“The MVR-02 is a giant step forward from the VR-01, and we are looking forward to further improvements here as we finally begin to benefit from the new Supercomputer that our partners CSC have provided for 2011.”

One possible ace in the hand for the team is the Wirth Simulator, on which the company has extensive experience over several years of building tyre models for Michelin. This could stand them in very good stead in terms of understanding and exploiting the Pirelli tyre and could be a differentiator from other smaller teams.

The drivers are Timo Glock and Jerome D’Ambrosio. Glock is capable of great things and had some outstanding drives in 2010 which went largely unnoticed at the back of the field. Like Trulli and Kovalainen, the senior drivers who took a step down last year to start again with a new team, he will be hoping that this car gives him the chance to mix it with the midfield teams. It will be a disappointment for Lotus and Virgin if they are still running in their own Class B at the back this year.

Force India did a live web launch this afternoon ahead of the first day of testing in Jerez. Driver Adrian Sutil said that the team is targeting fifth place in the constructors’ championship. “Everything is different but visually a lot of it is subtle,” said new technical director Andy Green. “The most obvious change is that we’ve gone away from a conventional roll-hoop to a blade. But there are a lot of differences under the skin that people won’t necessarily notice.

“Exhaust management will be a big area of development this year. There will be a big upgrade for the first race so there are some changes that will come into effect at the Barcelona test. Further down the road there are some big updates for the front of the car coming in for the first European race.

Force India cars have recently been good at low downforce circuits and not so good on high downforce ones. The technical team has made efforts to address this.

They have the Mercedes KERS system which is a big help to the team as it is both one of the lightest and most reliable systems in the field.

Force India started last season strongly but was overhauled in the points table by Williams as developments did not translate to big enough gains on the track. Although they have taken an extra week in the wind tunnel at the start of the season in order to have the strongest car at the opening races, they are also targeting a strong finish to the season. The battle with Williams over sixth place looks set to continue, although the team is aiming higher.

The team finished seventh in the constructors’ championship last year when Adrian Sutil and Tonio Liuzzi were at the wheel and team owner Vijay Mallya is now expecting a significant improvement.

“’2010 was an exceptional year for the team, 68 points overall, seventh in the championship with only teams who had previously won world titles ahead of us, which demonstrated we are still on target to achieve our goals,” said Mallya.

“And this year there is even more to be optimistic about. We’ve got three race drivers that are hungry to take the next steps in their careers, whether that be points, podiums or wins.”

Paul di Resta signed for the team in January after impressing in his role as their reserve driver last season. The 24-year-old will become the third Brit on the grid alongside McLaren drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.

“I don’t want to say exact targets on record as there are so many factors that can come into play,” said di Resta. “What I do want to do is to have a positive approach, finish, be consistent and contribute strongly to the team’s overall performance. We’ve got high aims of finishing in a good constructors’ championship position and I know that I’ve got to play my part in this.”

Hispania released images of their 2011 challenger – the F111 – earlier on Tuesday morning.

Technical director Geoff Willis and chief designer Paul White are responsible for the new car which features a distinct livery, created by design expert Daniel Simon. The old dark grey colour has been replaced by an eye-catching chequered flag design with flashes of red.

The team have marked out areas where potential sponsors could have their logos because as yet, Narain Karthikeyan’s backers Tata are the only sponsor on the car.

“The F111 represents a significant step forward for Hispania Racing,” said team boss Colin Kolles.

“We have made a big improvement for starting our second season in Formula 1 and what you see in our new car confirms Hispania Racing’s commitment to F1.”

The team won’t be in Jerez for the second pre-season test after deciding to do some private filming with their 2010 car for tyre supplier Pirelli at Monza. Instead, they are hoping to have their new car ready to test for the first time at the final test in Bahrain.