Making sense of Force India's turbulent summer as rebranded team is granted F1 Championship entry by FIA

They don’t call F1 the Piranha Club for nothing, and today it was the beleaguered Force India’s turn to be devoured by the sharp-toothed creatures that inhabit the paddock.

It was revealed in July that the Silverstone-based team had gone into administration in the face of mounting debts and an imminent winding up order. And on August 7th, during F1’s summer break, it was revealed that a rescue deal had been thrashed out.

This was masterminded by Canadian billionaire and clothing magnate Lawrence Stroll, father of Williams racer Lance. Disgruntled with that team’s performance this year, Stroll Snr put together a consortium to acquire Force India’s assets and keep the team in business.

But today in the paddock things reached a climax. As all the Force India branding was stripped from the team’s cars, trucks and motorhomes, and mechanics carried on with their routine final preparation of the two race machines due to be driven this weekend by Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon, objections raised by Williams, Renault and McLaren immediately after the deal was announced continued to reverberate.

A change of identity will be an inevitable part of the team’s restructuring, but as the day dragged on and various parties, including the governing body, the FIA, worked towards a solution, it became increasingly clear that that was only a minor point. The big thing was the form in which the revised team might be permitted to operate.

Stroll, it seems, bought the assets but not the British parent company of the team, which owns their greatest prize: the official entry to the FIA Formula 1 World Championship. Without that, his consortium had a race team that was all dressed up with nowhere to go.

Interestingly, back in late 2015/early 2016 when Marussia/Manor made history by becoming the first F1 team to come out of administration, Force India (which raced formerly as Jordan, Midland and then Spyker before Indian tycoon Vijay Mallya acquired a majority shareholding in 2007) had seen the situation from the other side as they were one of the teams opposed to Manor being granted an entry.

The current situation has been further clouded by the situation facing parent company owner Mallya, who is fighting extradition to his native India where he faces charges of financial fraud and money laundering as 17 banks seek to regain as much of loans worth $1.35 billion that went into a number of his companies, notably Kingsfisher Airlines which went bust in 2012 with huge debts. Mallya currently resides in the UK, and has had his passport confiscated.

When he was asked if he had doubts about Force India being able to continue, and to race here this weekend, Perez responded: "As far as I'm concerned, no. So, it's business as usual. I'm here to drive and do my job. That's my priority."

As evening approached it seemed likely that all of the teams would agree that Force India would be allowed to race, but only as a new identity, which would mean it forfeiting the prize money from the 59 world championship points won thus far this season as they sit in sixth place overall.

Perez and Ocon would be allowed to keep their respective driver scores of 30 and 29. Such a resolution would undoubtedly cost the team a lot of money, albeit much less than Mallya is said to want for the parent company and the crucial entry, but seemed to be the only way forward under the complex terms of the Concorde Agreement.

The money ‘earned’ by Force India thus far in 2018 – thought to be worth around $20m, would thus be divided up between the remaining nine teams.

The silly season of driver moves went incandescent during the break as Fernando Alonso announced his decision to quit F1 – at least for the immediate future – which was quickly followed by the news that Daniel Ricciardo was leaving Red Bull for Renault, Carlos Sainz was leaving Renault for McLaren, and Pierre Gasly was moving across from Toro Rosso, to the sister Red Bull team in place of Ricciardo.

It had been speculated that Perez might take Romain Grosjean’s seat at Haas, but as Ferrari move closer to keeping Kimi Raikkonen for yet another season and thus deny super-rookie Charles Leclerc the chance of partnering Sebastian Vettel, the Mexican is more likely to stay put at Force India as the Monegasque moves to Haas.

Meanwhile, Ocon looks likely to join Sainz at McLaren if details can be worked out with Mercedes for whom he is a junior driver, as current McLaren number two Stoffel Vandoorne moves into Leclerc’s vacated seat at Sauber.

Two British rookies wait to see what pickings there might be for them. F2 series points leader George Russell is a Mercedes protege who had hoped for a Force India ride in 2019, but could end up at Williams as Lance Stroll will inevitably move to Force India. Friday will be an historic date as his F2 rival Lando Norris will take over Alonso’s car for the first practice session to make his debut at an official grand prix meeting. The McLaren test and reserve driver has driven the car impressively in Hungary last year and Barcelona and Hungary this, racking up more than 1600 miles. A good showing here could enhance his chances of the second McLaren seat, or one at Toro Rosso.

“This weekend will be the first time that Lando will drive the MCL33 during a race weekend, as he steps into Fernando’s car,” McLaren sporting director Gil de Ferran said. “This is not only part of his ongoing development, but also the evaluation and performance evolution of the car. We’ll be taking a strategic view race-by-race at where else this might be beneficial for us over the coming grands prix.” Norris, who is very highly rated, is expected to take over Vandoorne’s car for FP1 at Monza next week, too.