The Second seat at Force India

Scot Paul di Resta at the VJM06′s launch at Silverstone

With Caterham having announced Giedo van der Garde as its second driver alongside Frenchman Charles Pic, there remain only two seats to be occupied on the 2013 grid. But some days ago, Luiz Razia’s official website sported a background of a Marussia car so it won’t be long before Marussia confirms the young Brazilian. So, we are left with only Vijay Mallya’s team.

Force India have already launched their VJM06 but the launch was one of the strangest in years, with only one driver present to unveil the car. The troublesome situation inside the team is clearly indicated by the fact that it has not even announced its reserve driver for the season. During the launch, Deputy Team Principal Bob Fernley announced that they are in no hurry to announce their second driver and as a result, young British driver James Rossiter will drive the car at this week’s test in Jerez. He also said that it will be the decision of the shareholders regarding whom to be given the race seat.

This points towards the fact that the people dealing with the technological side have no say whatsoever in the selection of the second driver because they are the people who are closest to a driver – they have day-to-day discussions regarding what is good and what is wrong about the car. Consequently, the engineers understand better about which driver is really talented even if the results are not as desired.

Having the shareholders taking the decision makes it very clear that the team is looking for a pay driver. Vijay Mallya’s recent troubles with Kingfisher are well documented and so Force India being in turmoil is no wonder. If they try to hire a driver who has to be paid, then it won’t be long before we have only ten teams on the grid or one of their drivers having to go down the same path as Timo Glock.

Infact, the problem arose for the British outfit when Nico Hulkenberg left the team last year because the perfect plan was to run Di Resta and Hulkenberg with Bianchi as the reserve driver for another year before considering him as a race driver. But even then, running two high-profile paid drivers would not have been easy. With Mallya in trouble since last year, what saved the team was the huge sponsorship brought by Sahara.

Bob recently admitted that Jules Bianchi and Adrian Sutil are the frontrunners for the seat, with Sutil’s manager optimistic about the German’s chances of making it to the Melbourne grid in six weeks time. But rumours are there that even Williams and Sauber outcasts Bruno Senna and Kamui Kobayashi are not out of contention. What is still giving them hope is the financial backing they have – Kobayashi having arranged for that through a website since the end of last season.

So, the question is who will it be? Sutil/Bianchi/Senna/Kobayashi? We have to wait till the Barcelona test to find out, but no doubt the team will be subjected to a barrage of questions from the press for the next few days in Jerez.