Force India may not be allowed to race in Belgium

The legal problems surrounding Force India currently may have their biggest impact yet as they may not be allowed to field their cars at the upcoming Belgian Grand Prix. Reportedly, the acceptance from creditors were not received by the administrators on the affixed deadline.

Force India driver, Sergio Perez, initiated the legal proceedings through his company over unpaid dues from last year. Majority shareholders, Vijay Mallya and Subrata Roy, who owned 85% of the team, had legal issues in their native, India.

This necessitated the approval from 13 creditor banks, which has apparently not been received on time. The sale to Lawrence Stroll and fellow investors has been done on an asset sale basis and not as a going concern.

This bars the team from participating in its current form and to continue racing, they will have to register themselves in a different name and go on as a new entity. This issue seemingly cannot be resolved by the start of the Belgium Grand Prix weekend this Friday.

To add to that, Force India will have to forfeit their revenues from F1 for this season, unless all the other teams give their consent. Three teams have declined that request by them, which poses another headache for them.

The deal has already been doubted by Stroll’s rival bidders, Russian oligarch, Dmitry Mazepin, who is the father of Force India development driver, Nikita Mazepin. However, it has been learnt that the current situation would have arisen even without that query.

This comes as a big blow to a team which has defied norms with their performances in recent years. They finished in fourth place in each of the last two years and have been widely regarded as ‘best of the rest’, outside of the top three of Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull.