Earlier in the week, we reported that Force India F1, amongst management changes had also decided to go with a Mercedes drive train for next year. Earlier this year, Mallya said that he was retaining his drivers for 2009, but all that seems to be out the window.

Mallya reiterated at the deal’s announcement that the team does not intend “at present” to change its current line-up of Italian Giancarlo Fisichella and Germany’s Adrian Sutil.

However the billionaire businessman did not rule out the prospect that other candidates might be tested for the two race seats.

“They (McLaren) will recommend what they believe to be in the best interests of my team and I have to decide. And I would be hard pressed to ignore their advice,” Mallya said.

“The first thing is building the car. If we don’t have a car then there’s no point having a driver…It’s already pushing the envelope a little bit, so we need to focus on the car. The driver comes next and we will have these conversations.”

But going back to the drivers, Mallya made it clear that winning was the only thing on his mind and he would do whatever it takes.

“I haven’t gone into any details on drivers yet,” said Mallya, who in the past week has ousted former team principal Colin Kolles and technical head Mike Gascoyne while also terminating Force India’s supply of Ferrari engines.

“I have taken some very hard decisions in the last week for this team. My interest is this team and it has to go where I want it to go.

“I am going to do whatever it takes. There are no emotions involved.”

At the other end of the deal, McLaren were not shy to re-iterate the fact that they will be pushing for their drivers to occupy the Force India seats. With the appointment of Simor Roberts, a McLaren veteran who will move into the Chief Operating Officer post at Force India, this seems very possible.

“There’s nothing off-bounds in this partnership,” McLaren CEO Martin Whitmarsh said, when asked about drivers.

“We will make proposals and recommendations that we think are enhancing the prospect of good performance from this team.

“I suspect he (Mallya) has some staggering business commitments outside of Formula One and he would expect us, as specialists and professionals in this field, to be making all of the recommendations that are necessary to ensure that we go forward.”

The drivers being talked about right now are Perdo de la Rosa, McLaren’s permanent tester and Gary Paffet who shares the responsibilities with the Spaniard and Scot Paul di Resta, who has tested for McLaren before.

While this might stand in the way of Indian drivers getting a default seat in Force India, this might work in favor of both partners. Mallya gets more than just the drive train from Mercedes, Mercedes can use this opportunity to market their products in India and McLaren will essentially have a B team to test their drive train. F1 has always been about data, with more data McLaren will certainly do better.

In the meanwhile we are also following Chandok to see if he gets a test in the already overcrowded paddocks of F1.

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