Szafnauer: Thanks to F1 teams for supporting Force India

The other teams agreed to allow Force India to keep the prize money earned, despite forcing the 'new' Racing Point team to relinquish the 59 points scored so far this season.

They start from zero this weekend at the Belgian Grand Prix.

Szafnauer told reporters at Spa-Francorchamps, "The remaining nine teams have signed, so to speak, a document that enables us to keep the money that Sahara Force India earned in years past."

"I think the biggest consequence is that we start from zero points, we forego the points because they belong to Sahara Force India, which is not an entrant any more. We are a new entrant, and start from zero."

"We will do the best we can and try to score as many points as we can in the remaining races, and see where we end up at the end of the season. And that will determine some of the prize fund for the following year.”

Szafnauer spoke of the timeline that kept him office-bound during the summer break, "It started off as a share sale that then transferred into an asset sale, for reasons that I don’t quite understand."

"Once that happened we needed a new entry, into F1, and to gain a new entry in a short period of time takes a lot of work."

“The last 48 hours were about working towards having Racing Point Force India F1 team gain its new entry, and that was a lot of work, to do that."

"Fortunately with the support of the FIA, FOM, and our fellow competitors, our colleagues within the community, we got it done. I’ve got to thank the teams for supporting us."

Lawrence Sheldon Strulovitch aka Lawrence Stroll is a director of Racing Point UK Holdings Limited which was incorporated on 2 August.

His partners in the venture include heavy hitters: Canadian billionaire Andre Desmarais, Jonathan Dudman of Monaco Sports and Management, fashion icon John Idol, telecoms investor John McCaw Jr, banking heir Michael de Picciotto and fashion tycoon Silas Chou.

For now, the mouthful Racing Point Force India will be the team's name for the time being, "The reason is we started the year with Force India as our chassis name. And F1 and the FIA, they don’t like chassis name changes, and I understand why, because it confuses the fans."

"And we thought it was prudent to keep Force India for the fans. The car is still pink, we still have the same sponsors, we still have the same drivers, we have the same motorhome, we have the same employees. If you look at us, we’re exactly the same."

"I think it would have been confusing to remove Force India. Racing Point was added in front of Force India instead of Sahara. That was just so we could distinguish between the old and the new."

"Racing Point just happens to be the name of the company in the UK that own the assets. That’s the only reason for the name being there."

"But the chassis name remains Force India, and I think from a fan perspective, that’s the right thing to do," added Szafnauer.