Getty Images As the calendar nears March, and the season-opening Australian Grand Prix is barely more than two weeks away, Force India’s second seat hasn’t been officially confirmed. However, as of Wednesday night, the fight between the two main contenders is close to an end.
Adrian Sutil, a veteran of five Formula 1 seasons (right), and Jules Bianchi, a would-be rookie who served as Force India’s third driver last year, are the two fighting for the final open seat on the grid.
Late Wednesday night, Autosport reported Sutil had beaten Bianchi to the seat. Both have tested for the team this offseason. As NBC’s Formula 1 pit reporter Will Buxton noted yesterday, Sutil has gained vital perspective from a year out of the sport.
Sutil’s second chance would come after legal issues a year ago that stemmed from assault charges that occurred in a nightclub after the 2011 Chinese Grand Prix. Reportedly, he has been cleared to travel for the entirety of the schedule.
He spent five years with the team from 2007 through 2011, making his debut when it was still called Spyker before Vijay Mallya and Force India took over from 2008. His best finish in that time was fourth at the 2009 Italian Grand Prix, a race he qualified a career-best second and set the fastest race lap.
Bianchi ran in nine Friday free practice sessions last year. The Frenchman spent two seasons in GP2 before switching to the World Series by Renault last season, where he finished second in the championship and barely missed the title.
It’s rare this late in the game that a seat is still up for grabs. There have been some eleventh hour changes – Vitaly Petrov replaced Jarno Trulli at Caterham in mid-February a year ago, for example – but ordinarily all the seats are booked with testing fully underway.
Sutil would be the fourth German driver of the 22 on the grid, joining three-time defending champion Sebastian Vettel, Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg and Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg.
Incidentally, it’s Hulkenberg whom Sutil would replace, after the opposite happened last year. The move would mean a repeat of the Sutil-Paul di Resta pairing in 2011.
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AP
Final preparations are in the books for the quartet of rookies who will be making their Indianapolis 500 debuts this Sunday. Only one of the four is contesting the full IZOD IndyCar Series season, Schmidt Peterson’s Tristan Vautier. Team Penske’s AJ Allmendinger is in the midst of his IndyCar return from a seven-year NASCAR sojourn,…
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Changes to parking policies and traffic routes, as well as more police officers and stricter enforcement of cooler sizes, await fans coming to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this weekend for the 97th Indianapolis 500. With the ’500′ serving as one of the first major sporting events since the Boston Marathon bombings last month, IMS has…
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One of the greatest IndyCar drivers of the last 20 years – and a hero to countless thousands for his recovery after losing his legs in an accident – finally had his day at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. On Friday, Chip Ganassi presented Alex Zanardi with the car that Zanardi used to complete “The Pass”…
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Reuters
Marussia team principal John Booth is pleased with the start that his drivers have made to the Monaco Grand Prix weekend, but he has admitted that the rest day on Friday does give the team extra time to review the data collected and prepare for the sessions on Saturday and Sunday. Unlike any other race,…
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Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen has made a slight change to his special Monaco helmet design ahead of Saturday’s sessions, with the move rumored to have been encouraged by Formula One Management. Many of the drivers have opted to run with an alternative helmet livery in homage to F1′s glamour event, with Sebastian Vettel and Lewis…
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Cecotto suspended after causing Sainte Devote crash in GP2 Monaco feature
May 24, 2013, 5:35 PM EDT
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Venezuelan driver Johnny Cecotto Jr. has been suspended from the FIA GP2 Series sprint race in Monaco, after he was judged to have caused the first turn collision in Friday’s feature race. Cecotto started from pole and missed his apex into Sainte Devote, with the ensuing pileup behind him affecting nine cars who were then…
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Scuderia Toro Rosso’s Daniel Ricciardo has spoken of his special affinity for the Monaco Grand Prix, and the Australian driver expects the team to run well at the race after a good showing last time out in Barcelona. Ricciardo ran well at the Spanish Grand Prix to finish P10, and he is sure that this…
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Caterham F1 Team owner Tony Fernandes has spoken out to silence rumors that he may be set to sell the team after it has failed to meet his expectations. Although the tycoon did admit that he expected Caterham to be running in the midfield by now, he believes that the team has come too far…
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AP
Townsend Bell is the IndyCar color commentator on NBC Sports Network and a professional driver. He’ll drive the No. 60 Sunoco Turbo Chevrolet during the 97th Indianapolis 500 on Sunday. My road to the Indianapolis 500 essentially started in 1986. I was 10 years old and living far away in the San Francisco area. Being…
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Three teams appear to be one step closer to signing new engine contracts for next season, according to reports. Marussia, Scuderia Toro Rosso and Williams have all been rumored to be looking for new engine contracts to coincide with the new regulations in 2014, and, according to Auto Motor und Sport, the deals are close…
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Tony DiZinno (@tonydizinno) Race winner: Nico Rosberg. Mercedes and Rosberg’s one-lap pace this year is unquestioned. Is this the race where the team finally puts it together from a good grid position to actually bring it home if they don’t chew through the tires as normal? I think so, for the driver who finished second here a…
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AP
A four-wide drag race to the checkered flag in today’s Firestone Freedom 100 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway was won by Peter Dempsey, who nipped Gabby Chaves to the yard of bricks by .0026 of a second in a wild final lap. The top four were separated by just 0.0443 of a second, and the margin…
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AP
The “Andretti Curse” at Indianapolis Motor Speedway isn’t stopping the NBC Sports Network team from making Marco Andretti (pictured) their popular choice to win the 97th Indianapolis 500 on Sunday afternoon. Andretti will start on the outside of the front row and has utilized a race-first mentality in preparing for this year’s Greatest Spectacle in…
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Simona de Silvestro on IndyCar 36 to air Friday night on NBCSN
May 24, 2013, 1:15 PM EDT
Reuters
IndyCar’s Carb Day coverage is currently airing on the NBC Sports Network until 4 p.m. ET. Later tonight, the focus shifts off-track, for the latest installment of IMS Productions’ IndyCar 36, featuring KV Racing Technology driver Simona de Silvestro. It airs at 10:30 p.m. Friday night. IMSP keyed in on de Silvestro at the last…
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Today’s GP2 feature race at the Circuit de Monaco got off to a chaotic start as a 14-car pileup ensued in the first corner just after the start of the race. Pole sitter Johnny Cecotto was blamed for the incident and has been kept out of the remainder of the GP2 weekend in Monaco. Cecotto…
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AP
Simon Pagenaud led Carb Day practice with a late flier, tow-assisted, fastest lap of 225.827 mph for Schmidt Hamilton Motorsports. Until that point, Andretti Autosport’s E.J. Viso (225.304) looked set to lead the timesheets as has been the trend this month. Besides Pagenaud’s No. 77 HP entry, Honda has made some strides in the morning…
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AP
During yesterday’s Media Day activities at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Team Penske rookie A.J. Allmendinger (starting fifth) was asked about which race was bigger to him: The Daytona 500, which he has run four times in his Sprint Cup career, or the Indianapolis 500, which he will run for the first time this Sunday. The…
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Hobbs, Matchett take over F1 on NBC Sports Twitter for fan questions
May 24, 2013, 10:00 AM EDT
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Friday is a light day in Monaco with no on-track Formula One activity. That makes it a good day to reflect on a couple insights and observations from our NBC Sports Network F1 analysts, David Hobbs and Steve Matchett. You can see the Monaco Grand Prix live on NBC, at 7:30 a.m. ET on Sunday,…
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Honda’s two North American arms has been in the news with two major announcements this week related to its IndyCar program. On Wednesday, Honda Performance Development officially opened its Indiana Tech Center in Brownsburg, Ind. The facility features a full-scale DIL (Driver-in-the-Loop) Simulator. Construction began in 2012. A DIL Simulator can save racing teams both…
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AP
The Indianapolis 500 has witnessed and endured many things in its 97 years of existence. In more recent times, it has had to sustain itself against a crippling split in open-wheel racing, NASCAR’s evolution from a strictly Southern tradition to a national phenomenon, and perhaps more importantly, a wealth of entertainment options that simply didn’t…
