[BheemBoy]

Wish Sahara buys enough stake and puts an Indian F1 driver in the race seat and hope that he will score a point or two. That will prove a point to the current owner and many in this forum who think that pay drivers are ruining the prospects of more talented drivers.

F1 is a big circus and there is nothing wrong in backing / sponsoring someone. Many of the top F1 drivers now were once pay drivers or started because they had some sort of backing or the other.

Having and Indian F1 driver in a decent car will increase the overall F1 interest in India, 2 times or 3 or 10 times maybe.

Is F1 the most important thing to have as an nation?

I for one would have opted for many more things before F1.

[AdityaLN]

It's rumor no more. UB share prices shot up about 9% today because of the deal. According to Times now, Mallya will be selling only about 8% rest is sold by other co-owners.

[swiftnfurious]

So some more spice to the thread.

Breaking: Sahara picks up 42% stake in Force India F1 team

More tweets from ODMAG.

Force India is now Sahara Force India! VJM sells stake to Sahara Pariwar. VJM & Sahara own 42.5% of the team each"

Sahara buys 42% in Force One, Mallya offloads 8 percent http://bit.ly/rpZmYH”

[Ardy]

The team is re-christened as "Sahara Force India".

Cheers,

[Skyline GT-R]

Force India re-named Sahara Force India - Rediff.com Sports

[libranof1987]

It is surprising how quickly India has caught up with the world when it comes to making sports a business.

With IPL and now F1, we are on par with the "club-culture" wherein a team is owned by someone for pure financial reasons a la EPL etc.

With Pune Warriors and Sahara Force India (yuck!) Sahara seems to doing just the same; picking up franchisees just for the business value.

Mallya is doing no different but at least he is passionate about whatever he is doing; you find him on the ground during IPL and on the circuit during F1.

But of course, you can't clap with one hand; so Sahara bought the stake because someone wanted to sell it.

Interesting to see Mallya sell 8%; anything to do with maintaining equal ownership? (Sahara and Mallya will both have 42.5%).

[MAS]

Sale confirmed.

Force India re-named Sahara Force India - Rediff.com Sports

Vijay Mallya seems to be selling a lot of stakes in various companies. I hope it is not to fund his loss making airline.

[khanak]

It isn't really a sale as much as taking on a new partner. Sahara and UB are now equal partners in the team with Sahara puttin in $100 million into the team.

[PuntoMania]

Lets hope this brings in more funding for the team. Its doing quite well since the past 2-3 years and FI is definitely among the top midfield teams (if not the best midfield team) since a while now, which is a great achievement.

It has decidedly gone ahead of Williams, employs a good set of engineers, and is a breeding ground for young talent in F1 like Sauber in the early 00s. Di Resta is definitely a driver to watch out for in the future, and Nico Hulkenberg is also a great catch.

Hopefully this new situation, where the Mol family has almost exited entirely, will finally bring in some Indian talent to this team in the form of engineers, design facilities etc.

[mgh]

The extra 100 million should help FI to compete with top three teams.

[gtonsing]

all said and done, I think, like mgh mentioned, the 100 million will push more cash into the wind tunnel and engine develpment work and by same time next year, we should start seeing SFI (Sahara Force India - i dont think the name will stick) nudging the pole position-ers. Three Cheers for Force India!!!

[MCR]

Making money in F1 is not so easy. Look how top vehicle manufacturers (BMW, Toyota etc.) opted out. Its one thing to do something out of sheer passion and something else to sustain it in the long run. The times have not been good and getting funding is very difficult. Add to it , there is a rumour doing rounds that Sutil may move to Williams (Read - Loss in revenue).

[MaserQ]

It will be interesting to see who will run the day-to-day affairs of the team. Will Mallya stay on as team boss or will we see a new appointment? Tricky situation with 2 major shareholders.

[deetjohn]

The current ownership structure

Sahara India Pariwar - 42.5%
UB - 42.5%
Michiel Mol - 15%

Vijay Mallya and Michiel Mol had bought the Spyker F1 team for € 88 million back in Oct 2007.

3 years later, Mallya sells 42.5% stake at USD 100 million. Even though significant investment has gone into Force India and the team is leagues ahead of the erstwhile Spyker F1, it is good business from a financial point of view.

Now, they should do their best to hold on to Paul di Resta.

[mgh]

Don't think Sutil will move to Williams, as they do not have a better car than SFI, unless SFI ask him to leave. I feel that SFI should keep Sutil for one more year at least to help development of a better car.