The co-owner of the Force India team, Vijay Mallya, has warned his country, India, not to expect too much from the team in 2008, despite a significant budget increase.<\/p>\n
The billionaire bought the former Spyker F1 team last season and renamed it after his country. One of the slogans put forward by Force India, “the force of more than a billion hearts,” sums up Mallya’s goal of considering India as a rising force in F1.<\/p>\n
After announcing that Italian Giancarlo Fisichella will race alongside Adrian Sutil for the new season, the Indian has called on all fans to be reasonable and realistic.<\/p>\n
\u00ab I do not underestimate the challenges facing me and my team, \u00bb he stated after the announcement of a budget of 120 million dollars for 2008, an increase of 50 million dollars compared to last year.<\/p>\n
\u00ab I have said very clearly that we should not expect miracles in 2008, but we will certainly show the world that Force India is heading in the right direction.<\/p>\n
India, with 1.1 billion inhabitants, is experiencing the strongest economic growth after China and is considered a potential market for other motorsports.<\/p>\n
\u00ab My goal by 2010 will be for Force India to take a place on the podium when India hosts its very first F1 Grand Prix. This does not mean that we will not get a podium before, \u00bb he added.<\/p>\n
Some had hoped to see a driver like Narain Karthikeyan within Force India, who became the first Indian to participate in F1 Grand Prix in 2005 and was a test driver with Williams last year.<\/p>\n
\u00ab I had to choose our drivers from a very large list, it is a team that also needs to learn and the choice was directed towards drivers who had the most experience, \u00bb said Mallya.<\/p>\n
\u00ab The team of engineers needs to benefit from the personal contributions of the drivers. For this purpose, Narain did not contribute enough. \u00bb<\/p>\n
He also said that what was happening with Force India was a great personal pride for the whole of India.<\/p>\n
\u00ab India is a large country, we know what we represent to the Indians and there will be many supporters who will wish for the team’s success. \u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00ab And to these people, we say that every effort will be made to achieve the best possible performance. There will be no compromise. But expectations must be reasonable and realistic, \u00bb he concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The co-owner of the Force India team, Vijay Mallya, has warned his country, India, not to expect too much from the team in 2008, despite a significant budget increase. The billionaire bought the former Spyker F1 team last season and renamed it after his country. One of the slogans put forward by Force India, “the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":43454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,1749],"tags":[75],"class_list":["post-27248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-f1","category-news","tag-autre-sport"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n