AUGUST 4, 2005

Karthikeyan to stay at Midland?

Narain Karthikeyan hopes to stay in Formula 1 next year with the newly-branded Midland team. But a lot of water has to pass under the bridge before that happens. The major problem appears to be money as there is no sign that the Midland group is going to fund the team to any great extent and the search for sponsorship is not going to be easy given that the team - currently known as Jordan - has no serious results to its name, despite finishing third and fourth in the six-car extravaganza at Indianapolis. The team continues to deny that it is for sale but behind the scenes the word is clearly out that if a buyer has $66m the team can be his.

This is much more than it is worth.

Karthikeyan has little hope of landing a drive elsewhere given the team's poor performance this year as he has not done enough to get the big teams excited about his talent. He has however brushed off stories that he is in the running for a drive with India's A1 Grand Prix effort saying that his primary goal is to continue to build up his F1 experience and hope that this will lead to a chance in a bigger team.