With Mercedes-Benz bigwig Norbert Haug making the recent announcement that Force India is in all likelihood set to become Mclaren’s testing ground for new and developing talent we wonder where Vijay Mallya’s dream of becoming the poster child of Indian racing went sour.

We recently saw an expressed interest by Sir Richard Branson in stepping into a Formula One role, sadly it would seem, the hype was inflated and possibly an expertly conceived marketing strategy by the British entrepreneur.  But it’s not the first time billionaire businessmen have made a foray into the sport; Vijay Mallya, India’s 7^th richest person entered in the 2008 season with a substantially rebranded Spyker outfit for which he paid the princely sum of 88m Euros.  His goal; to create a symbiosis that would promote Formula One throughout India and in return provide a resource to demonstrate Indian talent in a worldwide forum.

With Ferrari supplying engines for the team in their debut season and a billionaire’s chequebook on hand, it seemed that the outfit were set to become a Force to be reckoned with.  Of course, the dream and the reality are often two different things and we see yet again proof that money can’t buy results.  It seemed that despite running what was widely regarded as the best power plant in the business, Force India could not translate horsepower into results and trailed the bottom of the table scoring no points for the season.  Some have already begun to speculate about Force India’s survival in a sport that seems intent on eating itself away from the inside, but I think taking a look at the hard facts paints a rather optimistic portrait for the team, albeit it not in Mallya’s original intention.

Functionally, Force India, unlike Honda have some fairly lucrative sponsors and in contrast to Williams, Kingfisher is a brand that won’t pull the plug on funding anytime soon given that it’s a, not a bank and b, owned by Mr Mallya; a very clever set up indeed.  Now, not having a major manufacturer behind them like Renault and still choosing to construct their own chassis does mean that costs run high, but in a purer sense; the team have the option of deciding what they spend and when instead of working within the parameters of a foreign team.  This is not to say that the contract with Mercedes will foster a better working relationship; but the interesting thing here is that for the 2009 season, Mercedes Mclaren will be supplying an engine, gearboxes, hydraulics and a sparkly new KERS package for the Silverstone based outfit.

My expectation is that this arrangement will run for the year and if it yields some mid-field results by the end of the season, we’ll be waving goodbye to Giancarlo and saying hello to Orange Mercedes Force India.  In the driving seat, we already have a German that has shown considerable promise, but it’s disappointing to increasingly see the selection of drivers on the basis of national merit.  Yes Force India was established with this expressed remit, but that was somehow different seeing as it was going to benefit the sport in establishing an apparent untapped wealth of talent from India.  What we’re seeing now are teams and manufacturers with nationalist agendas that in all reality serve an insular purpose; Germany already has five drivers competing in the sport, whilst USF1 have already heavily publicised their intention to use exclusively American drivers, such as one time Indy Car winner Danica Patrick.

At the end of the day it’s their prerogative, but if fiercely nationalist teams like Scuderia Ferrari can see fit to get along without using exclusively Italian drivers, why can’t others follow this example?  I think there’s a place for this sort of behaviour but its called A1GP.