The Jordan team was taken over and renamed
Midland for the 2006 season, the management change prompted some doubt over Karthikeyan's future at the team. Near the end of 2005, Karthikeyan announced he would not be driving for Midland the following year due to their demand that he pay as much as
USD 11.7 million to secure his seat on the team. Alot of drivers in F1 have backers, IE: connections with sponsors that bring money to a team, he could not do this so his ride ended.
When the Spyker F1 team was bought out by Vijay Mallya towards the end of 2007, Karthikeyan had been linked with a drive with the new
Force India F1 team in 2008. However, Karthikeyan did not even get to test for the team. Karthikeyan was also linked to a drive with the
Super Aguri team in January 2008, as one of the terms of an Indian consortium investing in the team. The deal was not agreed and he continued to drive for A1 Team India.
Also of note his performance just wasn't there. In 2005 his only points in his F1 careerer came in the US Grand Prix, and we all know what happened in this race with only 6 starters due to the rest of the field boycotting the race for tire concerns.