Formula One: Growing Fish in a Big Sea

With all the news surrounding the political turmoil in F1, the FOTA breakaway, McLaren and Ferrari's shocking fall from grace, and the meteoric rise of Red Bull Racing and Brawn GP as the new powers in F1, it's easy to overlook another of the big movers on the grid, and perhaps the ones who have made the biggest gains time-wise: Perennial minnows Force India.

With four owners and team names in the past five years, consistency has been the biggest ingredient missing in the Jordan/Midland/Spyker/Force India recipe. After passing from the dedicated, but cash-strapped Eddie Jordan in 2005, the team fell into the hands of a Russian businessman who appeared not to understand the amount of time and investment necessary to build a competitive F1 team, and Jordan/Midland was sold to the Spyker car company even before the close of 2006.

Spyker laid the groundwork for improvement, hiring such personalities as Colin Kolles, Mike Gascoyne, and talented driver Adrian Sutil, but with such a late start on development, their 2007 challenger saw little improvement, netting only one penalty-gifted point through the course of the season. It was no surprise, then, that the team was sold again for 2008, this time to Indian billionare Vijay Mallya.

Mallya's influence was the first real sign of a turnaround for the ailing team, with a huge influx of cash, and a concerted development effort, along with the hiring of experienced driver Giancarlo Fisichella. While the 2008 showed little progress relative to grid position, with the FI's regularly qualifying on the back three rows of the grid, significant time was gained, and Adrian Sutil's almost-fourth place at Monaco was a well-received flash of brilliance.

Real progress has come in 2009, however, with the team making major performance gains relative to the rest of the grid and looking like genuine midpack challengers, even getting their cars into Q2 on two seperate occasions.

Extensive work done over the winter and throughout the season, combined with the double boost of McLaren's technical assistance and the Mercedes engine, said to be the lightest and most driveable on the grid, has already paid dividends through the first eight races of 2009.

Though ninth and 11th for Sutil and Fisichella respectively in Australia seemed like a fluke, the team have been a regular threat for points since China, where Sutil ran sixth until crashing out close to the end. Fisichella also looked set for points in Monaco, spending a good portion of the race in eighth before being overtaken on pitstops by Fernando Alonso. The most recent race, at Silverstone, saw further progress, with Fisichella throwing a fantastic overtaking move on Robert Kubica and Fernando Alonso en route to 10th.

The team's Achilles Heel this season has been driver errors and reliability, costing them points on at least two occasions, and most likely denying Sutil a mid-field grid position at Silverstone. However their car looks to be well-sorted, and their progress has been steady; they are already far ahead of the "works" McLaren team, have regularly beaten the BMWs and Renaults, and are even beginning to snap at the heels of the slower-than-usual Ferraris. Formula One's minnows are growing up.