To judge from the huge billboards in Bombay and the rolling national television campaign fronted by Bollywood’s biggest star, India can expect a media onslaught from the country’s first Formula One team during the build-up to its debut season.

Force India, under the new ownership of Vijay Mallya, a flamboyant billionaire and chairman of a brewing company, hopes to live up to its name, despite being a repackaged version of the Ferrari-powered Spyker team, who finished bottom of the constructors’ championship last season. Confirming Giancarlo Fisichella, the Italian ejected from his seat at Renault for Fernando Alonso, as the No 1 driver today is designed to create the necessary buzz around the team to capture “the force of a billion hearts” - the slogan Mallya has chosen to try to engage a cricket-obsessed public in an unfamiliar sport.

Fisichella, 34, and a veteran of 196 grands prix, is expected to drive alongside Adrian Sutil, a German rookie from the Spyker set-up last season. Vitantonio Liuzzi, another Italian, who raced for Toro Rosso last year, is the favourite to take the role of test driver.

Fisichella was one of seven drivers, including Ralf Schumacher and Christian Klien, who tried out during four days of testing in Spain last month. Mallya is thought to have opted for the Italian for the benefit of his experience, despite his trailing Klien during speed trials. Schumacher, the winner of six grands prix, ruled himself out to take a year off racing.

All three Force India drivers are scheduled to appear in Bombay today at a glitzy press conference designed to stimulate local interest in the Silverstone-based team. Next month Mallya, who is known for his fast cars, yachts and racehorses, will raise the temperature by unveiling the official race car in the city - the financial capital, home to the Indian bankers, retail entrepreneurs, property developers and media high-flyers he hopes will plough money into the sport.

The beer-to-airlines tycoon, often referred to as the Richard Branson of India, does theatrics well. He will need all the tricks in the marketing book, though, to fire up India’s 1.1 billion people, three quarters of whom are desperately poor by Western standards and will probably only dream of owning a television, let alone a car.

Roping in Shah Rukh Khan, Bollywood’s most bankable star, to front the publicity campaign is a good start. The actor, who is the Tom Cruise of India in terms of box-office appeal and is not being paid for the promotional work, connects with the youth constituency that is Force India’s target.

It is a huge potential audience: half of India’s population is under 25. The statistic is one of the main reasons why Bernie Ecclestone, Formula One’s commercial rights holder, has gone out of his way to accommodate a potential grand prix on the 2010 calendar. He sees emerging markets such as India and China as the financial future of the sport because of the untapped advertising revenues from such a large television audience - there are 110 million homes with a television in India, but cable and satellite are quickly adding to the number.

Since he joined forces with the Mol family to take control of Spyker last year in a €90 million (about £67 million) deal, Mallya says that he has put the loss-making team on a sound footing. He has not revealed the budget, but it is understood to be about €65 million a year. If that is sustained, his target of a podium finish if and when India plays host to its maiden grand prix in two years may be attainable.

“I think that the car always had a lot of potential,” Mallya said, “but that the team in the past was not in the position to get more experienced drivers to show that potential, which we are now able to do. I am cautiously optimistic for the 2008 season, although I don’t want to promise too much.”

The perfect scenario for Mallya, who is injecting patriotism into the equation in the hope that his countrymen will follow Force India as fanatically as they do Team India, the cricketers, would be for the driver on the podium to be Indian. That will be harder to achieve. Narain Karthikeyan, who raced for Jordan in 2005 and was a Williams test driver until last year, is plying his trade in A1GP and is 31. After a maiden GP2 series win, Karun Chandhok, 23, has secured a test drive with Red Bull but has some way to go.

Mallya has set a target of 2012 for an Indian Formula One driver to be spraying champagne after a race and is identifying talent in India to be handpicked for training in Malaysia and France. As Indians like to cheer on their own, with the patriotic fervour that accompanies the success of any compatriot in any sphere of public life, this may be the only way for Formula One to capture a billion hearts in India.

Centre of excellence

— The Commonwealth Games promises to be the biggest single sports event to be staged in India when it takes place in Delhi in 2010.

— Formula One is also on its way to Delhi, which will host the first Indian Grand Prix in 2010. A location for a new circuit has been identified in Greater Noida, near the city.

— The majestic Delhi Golf Club, set amid the splendour of the Lodhi Dynasty tombs, hosts the inaugural Indian Masters in February. The event, worth $2.5 million (about £1.25 million) in prize-money, will be the first European Tour event held there.

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