Force India Formula One

Vijay Mallya, co-owner of the newly-launched Force India Formula One team, posing with the team car during an unveiling function in Mumbai.

Millions of Indians, home and abroad, will cheer Force India's gold, tungsten and white cars race past the chequered flag at Albert Park, judging by the media build up in the run up to its debut season. The new Force India team, which is the former Spyker team, is now jointly owned by Mallya and the Mol family from the Netherlands.

Flamboyant Indian billionaire Vijay Mallya posing with Force India F1 team (C) poses with Indian Bollywood Actresses (L to R) Lara Dutta, Sammera Reddy, Shilpa Shetty and Shamitha Shetty at the unveiling of the team car in Mumbai.

Bankrolled by beer-to-airlines tycoon Vijay Mallya, this repackaged version of the Ferrari-powered former Spyker team is injecting patriotism to fire up India's cricket-obsessed public in an unfamiliar sport.

Mallya, a lawmaker and businessman whose empire extends from breweries to airlines, has chosen the slogan 'force of a billion hearts' to attract Indians to the team. India was hooked to Formula One when home-grown Narain Karthikeyan raced for Jordan in 2005 and test drove with Williams over the past two years and now New Delhi has been provisionally awarded a Formula One race in 2010.

F1 updates : Ferrari still quickest - Massa

With ten days to go until the first grand prix of 2008, Ferrari's Felipe Massa has questioned suggestions that McLaren's new car moved ahead of the pack at the recent final group test of the pre-season.

Previously, although Ferrari conducted some of its more recent on-track preparations away from the bulk of its opponents, the Maranello based team was widely acknowledged to have produced the fastest single seater. But to the Italian newspaper La Stampa, Massa insists that the true pecking order may not have changed at all at the recent Barcelona test.

"When your rivals are testing for qualifying conditions, it is obvious that they will be quicker than you if you are testing for the races," the Brazilian said.

"We did qualifying testing the previous week, and I beat the track record. In Australia we will understand (the real situation), for sure," he added.

Meanwhile, 26-year-old Massa revealed that he has no plans to start looking around the paddock for an alternate team, after joining Ferrari as a race driver in 2006.

Formula 1 : The begining

There was no ‘formula’ for motor racing during the years 1894, when the first ‘organised’ motor race took place from Paris to Rouen, until 1900. The then existing vehicles were simply raced. However, a differentiation was made between those cars on the basis of their method of propulsion (petrol or steam), and their number of seats.

During that time, cars always had at least two seats and it was not until the end of 1920 that single-seater cars were used for racing. The ‘invention’ of the rear-view mirror made an important contribution to this development, since one of the mechanic’s tasks in the 2-seaters was to warn the driver that someone was trying to overtake him!

The ‘FIA Formula-One’ World Championship was created early in 1950 and its first even was held on 13th May 1950 at ‘Silverstone’ Tracks in the U.K., which continues to be one of the most sought after ones even these days.