In the last "comparing the teammates"-post I promised to compare the Sauber drivers.
Esteban Gutierrez has been with the team for a few years already. First he was the testdriver and last year he got to be Nico Hulkenberg's teammate who was driving for Sauber at the time.
Adrian Sutil has just joined them so this is his first season with them. This is actually the first time Sutil drives with another team than Force India. Yes he started with Spyker but it became Force India later.
Previously I have written about the teammates of Ferrari, Lotus, Red Bull, Force India and Mercedes.
If you haven't read them then just click on the links below:
http://f14life.blogspot.fi/2013/11/comparing-2014-teammates-scuderia.html
http://f14life.blogspot.fi/2013/12/comparing-2014-teammates-red-bull-racing.html
http://f14life.blogspot.fi/2013/12/comparing-2014-teammates-lotus.html
http://f14life.blogspot.fi/2013/12/comparing-2014-teammates-force-india.html
http://f14life.blogspot.fi/2014/02/comparing-2014-teammates-mercedes.html?spref=fb
I'll do this the same way as I've always done. So first the year, then the teammate and how the season went.
I'm gonna start with Adrian Sutil because he got to Formula One first.
2007 - Christijan Albers, Marcus Winkelhock, Sakon Yamamoto. Spyker had a lot of different drivers that year but Sutil got to drive every single race. The team was the worst of 2007 but Sutil managed to get a point anyway with a 8th place in Fuji, Japan. No need to say anything about the teammates because Sutil was clearly the best of them.
2008 - Giancarlo Fisichella. Force India continued like Spyker and didn't score a single point that year. If you look at the statistics then Sutil was better. He got better positions in races and was higher up in the championship because of that.
2009 - Giancarlo Fisichella. Now the team was better and so was Fisi! They both got points (8-5) but Fisi was better. He even got a second place in Spa and was signed by Ferrari after that race. He replaced Luca Badoer who had earlier replaced Felipe Massa.
2010 - Vitantonio Liuzzi. This guy didn't stand a chance against Sutil and was replaced by Paul di Resta the following year. Sutil was 11th in the standings with 47 points and Liuzzi was 15th with 21 points.
2011 - Paul di Resta. This time Sutil was even better. He was 9th with 42 points in the standings when di Resta was only 13th with 27 points. Even though Sutil was better than di Resta they replaced him with Hulkenberg the following year.
2012 - He didn't get a seat because he almost went to jail. The German driver was in a nightclub in Shanghai in April celebrating his friend Lewis Hamilton’s victory in the Chinese Grand Prix, when an incident occurred with a champagne glass which led to Eric Lux, the co-owner of the Lotus Renault GP team receiving a serious wound to the neck.
Lux went to hospital immediately and was angry that Sutil and his friends left the club without offering assistance or apologising. Sutil did apologise later.
2013 - Paul di Resta. Because Hulkenberg wanted to drive for Sauber Sutil got another chance with Force India. Sutil started the season with a bang and even led the race in Australia for a while after he was overtaken by Kimi Räikkönen who eventually won the race. If we look at the whole season then Sutil lost to his teammate. He got only 29 points and was 13th in the standings when di Resta got 48 points and was 12th.
Esteban Gutierrez is next and the list is very short.
2013 - Nico Hulkenberg. This has been his only season so far and he got a very good driver against him. The dream was to beat him and get everybody's respect. The truth was totally different because Nico Hulkenberg is in my opinion one of the best drivers in F1. He wiped the floor with Gutierrez! Gutierrez was 16th in the standings and got 6 points. Hulkenberg was 10th with 51 points!
I guess it's pretty clear that Adrian Sutil is going to be better than Esteban Gutierrez. Anyways I still hope for Gutierrez to be better because I always like to cheer for the underdog.
That was it for today and tomorrow I shall compare the Williams drivers Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa.
