Formula One news

Indian GP on track, confirms Mallya

Force India co-owner Vijay Mallya has ensured that all plans to host a first ever Grand Prix in India are running smoothly. The country hopes to makes its Formula One debut in 2011 although a number of commercial upsets have recently cast a shadow over the event.

With the Indian sports ministry having denied a request by race promoters JPSK Sports in January, the latter was unable to forward the required race hosting fee of US$35.5m (£22.4m) to F1 commercial rights holder Bernie Ecclestone and his Formula One Administration (FOA) group.

Dr. Vijay Mallya, co-owner of the Force India team

"The Indian Grand Prix for 2011 is on track," Kingfisher supremo Mallya told Reuters in Belgium, casting aside any doubts over the race. "The promoters of the event have acquired land and spent a fairly significant sum of money in getting the track built, together with surrounding infrastructure.

"I think the recent media reports of the government of India's ministry of sports not supporting the event is limited only to permission that the promoters sought to remit about 38 millions dollars (£23.4m) to FOA because we still have exchange controls in India; they ran into some difficulty with that but, in the entire environment of exchange control in India, that is not surprising at all.

"Maybe they just have to go back to the ministry of sports and give some better explanation. At the end of the day, it's a lot of Indian rupees and so a typical government officer would not just readily sign it off."

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