Will Tata eye a F1 or Champ Car program?

India's Narain Karthikeyan has sponsorship from Tata an India car manufacturer and this making it difficult for Narain to get a seat in a F1 team that already has manufacturer ties.

The closest opportunity has been Williams, who has no affiliation to a car manufacturer, the test driver seat went to Alex Wurz. However, Williams is are expected to have Toyota backing in '07 which would conflict with Tata.

Some are speculating that a twelfth F1 team could see Tata badged Cosworth engine in a Tata chassis. Tata certainly has the money to do this. The Tata Group accounts for almost 3% of India's economy with 91 major companies across seven business sectors – Engineering, Materials, Energy, Chemicals, Consumer Products, Services, and Communications and Information Systems.

Tata Motors is among the top six commercial vehicle manufacturers in the world. In 2005 their vehicle sales increased 11.4%. If they have goals of increasing vehicle sales internationally, then an F1 program could be right for them.

Another option is for Tata to badge the Cosworth engine in Champ Car alongside Ford (50% of the grid each). North America has a large Indian population and Champ Car has North America covered fairly well. Tata could certainly sell cars in North America if it wanted to. North America is the world's largest car market. In addition, Champ Car is trying to expand internationally, but so far all efforts (besides Australia) have not borne fruit. We'll see if the South Korea race happens this year as planned.