Kobayashi has extended his relationship with Sauber
Kamui Kobayashi will stay at Sauber in 2011 after a strong second half of the season impressed his team boss.
The Japanese driver struggled with reliability problems and first lap incidents earlier in the year, but has been in the points in five of the past seven races, with a best of sixth in Valencia.
Peter Sauber said in a statement that he’d never had any doubt: “We enjoy having our rookie as part of the team – both as a driver and a person. We never had any doubts about working with him again in 2011. Kamui has definitely fulfilled our expectations in terms of his speed and fighting spirit. Plus, his work with the engineers and his technical understanding has also developed very well. The experience he has built up over his first full season in Formula One will certainly stand him in good stead for 2011. And our aim is to give him a fast and reliable car from the outset next season.”
Kobayashi said: “We had a very difficult start to the season, but we’ve worked together to pull ourselves out of that situation. I feel very much at home in Peter Sauber’s team and am very pleased we’ll be working together again in 2011. However, for now I’m focusing one-hundred per cent on this year. There are still six grand prix weekends to go in 2010, and we’ll be hoping to make up more ground.”
Pedro de la Rosa’s future remains in doubt, the team saying only thatt the “second driver for the 2011 season will be announced at a later date.” It remains to be seen whether Telmex confirms a new partnership with the Swiss outfit, in which case Sergio Perez and Esteban Gutierrez look likely to have roles.
Adam Cooper F1 