On 27 July 2018, Force India Formula One Team Limited — the legal operator of the Force India team for eleven seasons — was placed into administration. By 2 August 2018, its assets had been purchased by Racing Point UK Limited, a newly created company led by billionaire Lawrence Stroll. Other investors in the consortium included André Desmarais, Jonathan Dudman, John D. Idol, John McCaw Jr., Michael de Picciotto, and Silas Chou. Stroll was the father of Williams F1 driver Lance Stroll at the time.
Because the purchasing consortium acquired the assets rather than the team itself — a necessity given outstanding financial claims from 13 Indian banks that required approval — a new constructor entry had to be formed. The FIA excluded the original Force India entry from the 2018 championship due to its inability to complete the season and admitted the new entity as a separate constructor. The team retained the "Force India" chassis name as part of the constructor title, prefixed with "Racing Point," resulting in the unwieldy combined name. Drivers kept their accumulated Drivers' Championship points, but the new team was barred from inheriting the constructor points the old team had earned. Under a special agreement — with the unanimous approval of the other nine teams — the newcomer was permitted to retain the prize fund distributions the former Sahara Force India had earned in prior years.
The team made its competitive debut at the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps. In a qualifying session disrupted by rain, Sergio Pérez and Esteban Ocon qualified third and fourth respectively. They converted those grid positions into fifth and sixth in the race, scoring 18 points and immediately placing the new team ninth in the Constructors' Championship. The following Italian Grand Prix brought sixth and seventh place finishes, lifting Racing Point Force India to seventh in the standings, ahead of Sauber, Toro Rosso, and Williams.
The Singapore Grand Prix proved a damaging round when Pérez and Ocon collided on the opening lap. Ocon retired on the spot; Pérez went on to hit Sergey Sirotkin and ultimately finished 16th, leaving the team without any points from the weekend. Racing Point Force India gathered 52 points in total over the truncated season and finished seventh in the Constructors' Championship — four points clear of Sauber and seven points behind McLaren.
In December 2018, the FIA's preliminary 2019 entry list confirmed that Racing Point intended to drop the Force India name for the following season. In February 2019 the team was officially renamed Racing Point F1 Team, becoming a new constructor for the purposes of the championship while continuing to operate from the same Silverstone factory with the same personnel and infrastructure.
The short existence of Racing Point Force India as a named entity — fewer than ten races — reflected the legal complexity of the mid-season ownership transfer rather than any discontinuity of operations. The team and its factory continued largely uninterrupted through to 2020, at which point Lawrence Stroll's investment in the Aston Martin marque prompted a further rebrand to Aston Martin F1 Team from 2021 onward.