Divorce initiated between Sauber and Simona de Silvestro

Since the beginning of the 2014 season, the Sauber team had taken Simona de Silvestro under its wing, a young 25-year-old Swiss driver with notable experience in automobile racing in the United States.

The Swiss team had even planned to have the young woman drive during the United States Grand Prix weekend in Austin and, for that purpose, had De Silvestro participate in several private test sessions with old single-seaters so she could obtain her Super License, a crucial requirement to race in Formula 1.

But according to our colleagues at Autosport, the 90-day period following the tests during which the driver was supposed to obtain her license has expired and it has not been issued. Moreover, contractual issues reportedly arose between the team and its driver, which allegedly led to the termination of the contract binding the two parties.

A spokesperson for Sauber confided on this subject in the columns of *Autosport*: « The planned program with Simona will not continue due to her financial issues. Everyone in the team who worked with her over the past six months is very disappointed that it ends this way because we really enjoyed working with her. We are now exploring other possibilities for Simona to continue working with us, but it will take time. »

De Silvestro was openly vying for a full-time seat in 2015 with the Swiss team, which seems no longer relevant now. The Sauber seats will be highly sought after in 2015 since, besides Esteban Gutierrez and Adrian Sutil, who are currently the two main drivers, there are already possible connections between the Swiss team and drivers like Giedo Van der Garde (already Sauber’s reserve driver this year), Jules Bianchi, or even Jean-Eric Vergne.