Title sponsor removed from Force India sidepods

Force India has denied it is set to split with its title sponsor Sahara.

The Indian conglomerate is headed by Subrata Roy, who is currently sitting in jail for failing to pay billions in refunds to investors.

The supreme court on Wednesday refused to release Roy, despite the Sahara Group saying the company is having trouble raising money while he is in jail.

"The intention behind putting him in jail is to raise money," Indian media quote Sahara's lawyer as having told the court, "but it is not possible to do so when he is inside."

At precisely the same time, the prominent 'Sahara' branding disappeared from the sidepods of Force India's car during post-race testing in Bahrain.

But the Silverstone based team insisted that the all-black sidepods were simply due to the testing of "development parts".

"The Sahara logo will be found in its usual places in China," the spokesperson is quoted by German-language Speed Week.

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Leopold

Leopold Pleijsier founded F1-Fansite.com in 2001 and has followed Formula 1 since the early 1980s. He writes about daily F1 news, race weekends, drivers and the sport’s history.

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