F1 2013

Friday, February 1, 2013

van der Garde Confirmed

Caterham and Giedo van der Garde have confirmed via twitter that he will partner Charles Pic in the second race seat this coming season.

This has formed the talking point of a couple of websites this morning. With the double car launch of Ferrari and Force India taking up the morning news not an awful lot of attention was given to it simply because of the wealth of delightful images that provide the design perspective for the coming season.

Apparently, according to the F1Fanatic "round-up", Luiz Razia confirmed on his website that he was going to drive the second F1 car for Marussia this coming season. Now, having followed the link the statement shown on the F1 Fanatic screengrab of Razia's site would appear to have been taken down, signifying that it went up a day early perhaps?

Joe Saward led yesterday with "on-the-street" rumours in Brazil that he would be the second Brazilian driver in F1 this season and has followed that up with a confirmation statement and a follow up announcement expected this afternoon.

The only other signs of this announcement appear on GMM tickertape sites and on Pitpass.

While it's probably true its also interesting that Joe Saward states that Giedo van der Garde is expected to sit in the second Caterham, with a press conference taking place in Amsterdam in the next few minutes and Jules Bianchi likely to be confirmed for Force India should a 2014 engine deal be agreed between Ferrari and the Silverstone based F1 Team.

There are also reports of a rogue tweet from Paul di Resta last night, deleted minutes later, which welcomed Bruno Senna to the Force India team. Even more interesting is the fact that Adrian Sutil's management apparently has said that he will be on the grid in 2013.

It has also been reported that WEC driver James Rossiter will partner Paul di Resta at the Jerez test, which will give him an insight, much as Pedro de la Rosa, in setting up the simulator back in the factory.

So, the fact is that Force India say they will reveal their second driver before testing in Barcelona but, in respect of the other two drives, we might be expecting to hear clarification before the end of the day.