After going through three team-mates during his maiden campaign in the top flight last year,
Adrian Sutil is relishing the opportunity to compare himself against experienced
Formula 1 ace
Giancarlo Fisichella in 2008.
The 25-year-old may have been a rookie in 2007, but that did not prevent him from comfortably outperforming Christijan Albers and Sakon Yamamoto, even if Markus Winkelhock did steal the limelight momentarily away from him by sensationally leading the field on his grand prix debut at the Nürburgring. Sutil went on to score a point with a mature drive to keep his head as many other lost theirs in the torrential downpour at Fuji, and he will remain at
Force India (formerly Spyker) this year as the renamed squad bids to launch itself off the back of the starting grid.
What's more, having the same driver alongside him year-long, Sutil reckons – and one who has started 194 grands prix and won three of them at that – can only help to extract more of his own evident promise and potential.
“I see this as very important,” the rising German star told website
motorline.cc on having the Italian veteran as a yardstick against whom to judge his progress, “and I can benefit a lot from that.
“For this reason it is also a crucial year for me. Last year it was difficult in this regard; Albers was very good but in the end he was dealing with a lot of problems.
“Then Markus came in without any test days, and Sakon was definitely not the fastest, but with Giancarlo I think we will push each other.”
Sutil similarly acknowledged the fact that rumours of interest from other teams towards the end of last year – amongst them McLaren-Mercedes and
Toyota – did him little harm.
“Obviously it was nice to hear my name connected with other teams,” he admitted, “but ultimately nothing came of it and I am still here. What I wanted to achieve last year, though, I did – namely, to attract some attention and bring my name into conversations.”
