Adrian Sutil

Sutil’s father is a concert violinist, and the young Adrian spent his tender years engrossed in the study of the piano, but by the time he had reached his teens his career ambitions lay in a more fast-moving discipline. The German began his career, like most, in go-karts, first getting behind the wheel at the age 14, before moving up to the Swiss Formula Ford 1800 championship in 2002. He dominated the series, winning all ten races, en-route to taking his first title. He also took five wins in the Austrian Formula Masters Championship during the same year.

Bolstered by his success in '02, he graduated to the German Formula BMW Championship in 2003, and while he took no wins and ended the year sixth in the standings, he did enough to secure a place in the Formula 3 Euro Series for the following year with HBR. Although Sutil scored only twice in 2004 and ended the season 17th in the standings, he continued to learn and did enough to make an impression on then HBR team boss, Colin Kolles.

For the final two races he switched to ASM F3 and during 2005 he remained with the squad, partnered by future F1 rival and McLaren-backed youngster, Lewis Hamilton. While Hamilton dominated the F3 Euro Series in '05 though, taking the title and 15 wins, Sutil had to settle for 'best of the rest' and ended the year second overall, with two wins to his credit, despite opting to skip the last two events in favour of representing Germany in the A1 Grand Prix series. He didn't enjoy much success in A1 GP though and his best results, from his three outings – in Portugal, Australia and Dubai – were two twelfth places.

2006 was his big chance and at the start of the year he was confirmed as one of the raft official test drivers for Midland MF1 – now the Spyker team. Sutil took in three Friday practice sessions, at the Nurburgring, Magny-Cours and Suzuka, and posted some pretty promising times in the 'third car'. Indeed he was seventh overall at the French Grand Prix, over a second up on the next best Toyota powered-M16. He also posted the tenth best time in Friday practice at the European Grand Prix.

All the while he was combining his commitments in F1 with a successful programme in the Japanese F3 Championship, which he won with the TOM's Toyota team, taking five wins in the process. He also shone at the prestigious Macau F3 event, finishing third overall, despite sticking with the TOM's Dallara-Toyota package, which was deemed inferior to the Mercedes and Mugen engines used by most of the other competitors.

While most expected him to remain in a testing capacity in 2007 and perhaps supplement this with a campaign in GP2 or the World Series by Renault, mentor Kolles had other ideas. He was confirmed at Spyker alongside Christijan Albers, stepping into the race seat previously occupied by Tiago Monteiro. The 23-year-old German soon began to make a good impression in the Spyker-Ferrari, particularly in practice sessions. A rain hit session in Monaco saw Adrian at the very top of the time-sheets and this eye-catching performance marked him down as one to watch. Subsequently there were a few incidents as the young driver perhaps overreached himself to compensate for the lack of speed in his car. He did have the satisfaction of claiming his first World Championship point in the Japanese Grand Prix, albeit at the expense of a Liuzzi following the Italian’s misdemeanour.

It is still hard to judge whether Sutil is a major talent and 2008 could well be a make or break year for the German. He will now be expected to match the performances of the very experienced Giancarlo Fisichella in a Force India team whose ambitions are now greater than just making up the numbers.