Force India's Mallya dismisses A1 chief's remarks

By N.Ananthanarayanan

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Force India owner Vijay Mallya rebuked A1 Grand Prix chairman Tony Teixeira for criticising the Formula One team on Thursday and accused his series of "promoting mediocrity".

Teixeira, who heads the self-styled World Cup of Motorsport, told Reuters on Wednesday that Force India were sending a wrong message to millions of Indian racing fans because the team had no Indian drivers and no chance of winning.

He said his own series, with India's Narain Karthikeyan already a race winner, sent out a message that Indians could be winners.

In a strongly-worded statement, Mallya questioned the South African's competence to speak on Indian motorsport aspirations.

"Trying to reach out to India's youth by encouraging participation in and the temptation of winning a title in a series that does not even begin to compare with GP2 or F1 is just promoting mediocrity amongst young Indians who aspire to be world class," he said.

"This indeed is a wrong message which seems to be an act of desperation given the huge and growing support for Formula One and the Force India Formula One team."

Mallya bought the Spyker team last year and renamed it, signing up Italian Giancarlo Fisichella and German Adrian Sutil as drivers with Italian Vitantonio Liuzzi as tester.