Adrian Sutil (; born 11 January 1983) is a German racing driver who competed in Formula One from to .
Born and raised in Starnberg, Sutil started karting aged 14 and moved into single seater racing in 2002 in the Swiss Formula Ford series where he won the title. He moved up into Formula Masters Austria and started one race before stepping into Formula BMW ADAC in 2003. Sutil then raced in the Formula 3 Euroseries, where he was the runner-up to Lewis Hamilton in 2005. He went to Japan in 2006 to race in the All-Japan Formula Three Championship and also finished third in the Macau Grand Prix.
Having been involved in the Midland F1 test team, Sutil was promoted to a race seat for the new Spyker F1 team in 2007. Sutil continued to race with the team under their new guise Force India in 2008 where he remained until 2011. Having made his return to the sport in 2013 again with Force India, he competed in the 2014 season with the Sauber team. Sutil holds the record for the most career starts without a podium finish (128).
Early life Adrian Sutil was born on 11 January 1983 in Starnberg, Bavaria, West Germany. His parents are both professional musicians: his German mother, Monika, and his Uruguayan father, Jorge. He has two brothers, named Daniel and Raphael. A talented pianist, Sutil speaks fluent German, English, and Spanish and a little Italian.
Junior racing career Karting and lower formulae (1997–2002) Sutil started karting at the age of 14 before moving up to Swiss Formula Ford 1800 in 2002. He won all 12 rounds of the season from pole and added five wins in the Formula Masters Austria championship.
Formula BMW / Formula Three (2003–2006) When Sutil moved up to the Formula BMW ADAC championship in 2003 he finished in sixth place in the series, but with no wins. The following season he stepped up to the Formula 3 Euroseries with Colin Kolles' team. Although he scored only twice, the connection he made with Kolles would prove useful in the future. He moved to the ASM team at the final round of the year.
Sutil stayed with ASM for 2005 and was joined by British driver Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton won more races than Sutil, but the German was runner-up to Hamilton and the Briton's only serious competitor in the championship and at the Marlboro Masters of Formula Three at Zandvoort.
Sutil missed the last two rounds of the 2005 Euroseries after joining A1 Team Germany for the inaugural A1 Grand Prix series. He raced for them at three events in Portugal, Australia and Dubai, his best result being two twelfth places.
Sutil spent 2006 racing in Japan and won the All-Japan Formula Three Championship. He showed a very strong performance all season. He also finished third in the Macau Formula Three Grand Prix and made a one-off appearance in Japanese Super GT.
Formula One career
That year also saw Sutil enter Formula One. In January, he was confirmed as one of the three test drivers for the new Midland F1 Racing team, along with Markus Winkelhock and Giorgio Mondini. This came thanks to his connections with Colin Kolles, who was then running the team.
Sutil appeared for the team as the third driver at the European, French and Japanese Grands Prix. By the time of his third appearance, the outfit had been bought by Spyker Cars. At the end of the year, he was promoted to second driver for the 2007 season, having been signed on a multi-year contract by the Spyker MF1 Team. In an interview with the Official Formula One website, Sutil's first 2007 teammate, Christijan Albers, commented that "Adrian is a good driver and he will be quick this year, but as a driver you should always be pushing to the limits without thinking what the guy in the car next to you is doing. But Adrian will be a good team-mate and it looks as though he's going to be a big talent [for the future]".
Spyker / Force India (2007–2011) 2007
During 2007, Sutil out-qualified and out-raced his team-mate Albers at all Grands Prix before the Dutchman was replaced by Sutil's countryman Markus Winkelhock, test driver for the team up until that time at the European Grand Prix. Sutil out-qualified Winkelhock, although the latter went on to lead the race and restart after a sudden downpour. Winkelhock resumed his third driver role for the following grand prix at Hungary when Japanese driver Sakon Yamamoto took over the second team seat. Sutil out-performed Yamamoto in the race, passing Honda drivers Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button.
In the Hungarian Grand Prix, Sutil was the first Spyker driver in 2007 to beat another running classified finisher, Honda's Rubens Barrichello.
For the Turkish Grand Prix, a B-spec car was expected for the Spyker team, but it failed a rear crash test and Sutil continued to use the older spec car. After fuel pressure problems, he was forced to start the race from the pits and finished five laps behind. At Monza, despite the introduction of the B-spec Spyker F8-VII and due to the nature of the circuit, the Spykers were largely uncompetitive once again and Sutil finished 19th, again only in front of his team-mate.
At the Belgian Grand Prix, the strengths of the B-spec car were fully evident with both Sutil and Yamamoto setting competitive times through the three practice sessions culminating in Sutil qualifying only half a second behind 16th placed man Vitantonio Liuzzi. During the race, Sutil passed the Toyota of Jarno Trulli, Hondas of Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button as well as the Red Bull's David Coulthard, Toro Rosso's Vitantonio Liuzzi and Williams driver Alexander Wurz. He ran as high as 12th before finishing 14th. He was highly praised for his efforts by both team and media.
Two weeks later in the rain at Fuji Speedway, Japan, it seemed Sutil had narrowly missed an opportunity to score Spyker's first ever point, briefly holding eighth position on the penultimate lap of the high-attrition race after Nick Heidfeld retired his BMW, but was almost immediately passed by fellow backmarker Vitantonio Liuzzi in the Toro Rosso and finished ninth. After the race it was found that Liuzzi had overtaken Sutil under yellow flags, and the 25-second penalty for the Italian promoted Sutil to the final points position. Toro Rosso appealed the decision, but the penalty was upheld.
Spyker were not competitive in the final two races of the year, neither of which Sutil finished. He has been praised by many for his performances in the 2007 Formula One Championship. Despite driving the most uncompetitive car of the year, the German rookie impressed by not only dominating all of his teammates in both qualifying and race conditions, but also by challenging other drivers with superior equipment.
2008
Sutil continued with the team in 2008 under its new identity as Force India, after briefly entertaining the possibility of a drive with McLaren or Williams. The first two races of the season ended with mechanical failures
While running in a very strong fourth position in Monaco with six laps remaining, he was hit in the rear by fifth placed Kimi Räikkönen who lost control of his car while braking for the harbour chicane. A crash a few laps earlier had resulted in the safety car being deployed, with Sutil losing his considerable lead over the Finnish driver. Sutil's car suffered damage to the rear diffuser, and he was forced to retire. Mike Gascoyne called for Räikkönen to be punished over the incident. No punishment, however, was given. However, Sutil had overtaken three cars under yellow flags and according to steward Paul Gutjahr, should he have reached the chequered flag, he would have been given a 25-second penalty which would have dropped him out of the point-scoring positions.
On 17 October, Force India announced they would keep Sutil for the 2009 season.
2009 Sutil and the Force India team started the year with a real optimism of points scoring finishes when the European part of the season started after the first four races. BBC commentator Martin Brundle expressed his personal view that:
In Australia, after starting from 16th on the grid, Sutil progressed steadily through the field to finish just outside the points in ninth place. In Malaysia, he qualified 19th and finished 15th when the race was stopped on lap 33 due to torrential rain.
In China, Sutil was running in sixth place with six laps remaining when he lost control of his Force India – due to aquaplaning – resulting in him crashing and forcing him to retire.
In Bahrain, Sutil was penalised for blocking Mark Webber during the first qualifying session. He personally walked into Webber's room to apologise for the incident.
In Spain, after running wide at the first corner of the first lap, Sutil rejoined the track only to hit the Toyota of Jarno Trulli. The Italian had also run wide and was rejoining the track. This forced both drivers to retire and caused the two Toro Rossos of Sébastien Bourdais and Sébastien Buemi to crash into each other.
In Monaco, Sutil finished 14th and finished 17th in Turkey, after qualifying a career-best of 15th.
In qualifying in Britain, Sutil went off at Abbey corner after brake failure in Q1. Qualifying was red flagged and as a result no one else could post a lap time. This meant that Sutil was to start from 18th on the grid, although the team had hoped that both Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella would get into Q2. Due to the damage caused by the accident he had to start from the pit lane because he needed to use a new car and a new engine, and went on to finish 17th in an uneventful race.
In Germany, Sutil took advantage of the unpredictable conditions in qualifying, and secured his best-ever qualifying position of seventh. In the race, he was lying in second place for a while before his first pit stop. However, a collision with Kimi Räikkönen after coming out of the pit lane meant he had to pit again to replace his front wing. He finished 15th. It was the second time that a collision with Räikkönen cost Sutil the chance to score points, after the previous incident at the 2008 Monaco Grand Prix.
In Hungary, he was forced to retire after just two laps because a water temperature problem caused the engine to overheat, after qualifying 17th.
In Valencia, new aerodynamic upgrades for the VJM02 saw him qualify 12th, and he then raced steadily to finish tenth, demonstrating that the team were at last showing signs of competitiveness, as teammate Fisichella finished 12th behind Heidfeld's BMW Sauber.
In Belgium, he qualified 11th, although the main celebrations in the Force India pit were for teammate Giancarlo Fisichella's excellent pole position. Sutil finished 11th, while Fisichella finished less than a second behind Kimi Räikkönen's race-winning Ferrari.
At the , Sutil took his career best qualifying result of second place and finished fourth (third of the cars without KERS) in the race behind Räikkönen, despite accidentally overshooting his mechanics during his final pit stop, but they suffered only minor injuries. He also recorded the fastest lap of the race, his first in Formula One and the first fastest lap recorded for Force India. This finish would be the best of his F1 career.
In Singapore, Sutil was forced to retire after he collided with Nick Heidfeld of BMW Sauber, moving into his path as he recovered from a spin. After the race, Sutil was reprimanded by race stewards and fined $20,000 for causing an avoidable accident.
In Japan, Sutil took his second best career qualifying result of fourth, but was given a five-place grid place penalty along with Jenson Button, Rubens Barrichello and Fernando Alonso for not slowing down while yellow flags were waved (due to a crash by Sebastien Buemi, who was also demoted five places for attempting to drive his badly damaged Toro Rosso back to the pits) and started the race from eighth on the grid. Sutil finished 13th.