Giedo van der Garde to replace Sutil for FP1 in China

Giedo van der Garde

Sauber test driver Giedo van der Garde is set to get his second practice run-out of the season at next weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix when he replaces Adrian Sutil during the first Friday session.

The Dutchman joined Sauber at the beginning of the season after being dropped by Caterham, and has set his sights on a full-time drive with the team in 2015. He first got behind the wheel of the Sauber C33 during practice at the last race in Bahrain, where he replaced Esteban Gutierrez for FP1 and finished just three-tenths of a second behind Adrian Sutil.

Next week, van der Garde will replace Sutil for the session, having also ran at the in-season test in Bahrain earlier this week.

The team is also set to bring a number of upgrades to the race in Shanghai after a disastrous start to the season that has yielded zero points and a number of DNFs.

“The team keeps working relentlessly to get on top of the performance limitations that so far have not allowed us to race where we want to," head of track engineering Giampaolo Dall’Ara explained. “We look forward to the Chinese Grand Prix as the next step, thanks to a number of updates we’ll be introducing and more track experience we gathered during the Bahrain test."