India has definitely done a full U-turn in the eyes of the international motorsports scene, let alone Formula One. Now, the nation boasts its own Formula One team in Force India, two Formula One drivers in Karun Chandhok and Narain Karthikeyan and will be hosting its inaugural race in October this year.
Taking all this into consideration, Force India's chief, Vijay Mallya, thinks his home nation has more to offer and has set up the Force India F1 Team Academy with the initiative to find and nurture top drving talent from the country.
Aiming to find that 'one in a billion,' the driver search program will kick off with karting events before selecting the fastest teenagers aged between 14 to 17 for the national finals. From that, the top ten will be sent to England for a week's training at Silverstone. Three finalists will then be announced at the Indian Grand Prix with the winner getting full sponsorship to race in the UK for a full season.
This driver search program makes Force India one of the few teams to support such a program. Apart from them, Ferrari has recently started its own talent search program while Red Bull already has one of the most advanced driver search programs in the world.
For more information, drop by the program's official site at onefromabillion.
