Vijay Mallya has revealed that is he set to start an initiative for young racing drivers in India with a view to brining a future prospect into Force India. The Team Principal and Chairman is confident that, although the country man not have produced a famed name thus far, the future is bright.
Force India joined the Formula 1 grid in 2008, having bought out the Spyker team which had previously run under the guises of Jordan and Midland. The start of this season saw Hispania’s Karun Chandhok become the first Indian F1 racer since Narain Karthikeyan in 2005 although Mallya is sure that more gifted Indians are in the pipeline.
“Let’s be clear - motorsport is not that advanced in India for a variety of reasons, to throw up drivers who would ultimately reach Formula 1,” Vijay said in Valencia. “We have drivers - Narain Karthikeyan, Karun Chandhok and a couple of others, Armaan (Ebrahim, Formula 2), and there’s a boy called Patel - they’re talented drivers.
“Now I must decide whether they suit my requirements in Force India Formula 1 or not. I have been very fair; I’ve given at least one of them the opportunity in the driving simulator and I put four drivers in and selected the best one of the lot, which happened to be (Scot) Paul di Resta, so it isn’t as if I’ve got a shut mind here.
“But I’ve got to start looking for somebody really young and, as I have said to you and to many others before, amongst 1.2 billion people there’s got to be a Lewis Hamilton somewhere.”
Confident of finding India’s best driving talent, Mallya revealed his initial thoughts for the country’s first ever national driver hunt.
“It’s like trying to pick a needle from a haystack but we are now going to launch a nationwide programme in India to identify young talent…and this is a pretty complex exercise,” he explained.
“It involves several karting tracks all over the country, a whole organised method of getting people to enter, a competitive environment, a competitive programme and then we will probably take those with exceptional talent to either England or Europe, pay for them, pay for their education, pay for their karting and literally mentor them through until they can sit in a Formula 1 cockpit - and we are absolutely committed to doing that.”
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