Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsSauber

Sauber responds to van der Garde demand

Sauber has responded to legal action from Giedo van der Garde demanding that he be given one of the race seats for the 2015 season.

Van der Garde has taken urgent legal action against Sauber, lodging documents in Australia on Wednesday and gaining a hearing on Monday 9th March as he seeks to gain one of the team's race seats. Van der Garde was Sauber's reserve driver in 2014 and believed he was set for a race seat this year, claiming he had activated a clause in his contract, but Sauber took on Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr as its drivers for this season.

Now team principal Monisha Kaltenborn has responded to the legal action, saying the team will defend against van der Garde's action.

"As this matter is currently before the courts it would be inappropriate for me to comment on specific details," Kaltenborn said. "However, we will take all necessary steps to protect our company, this team and its interests.

"Last year was a challenging time for us but going into the 2015 season we have been focused on putting steps in place to ensure that we are delivering the best outcomes for F1’s fans."

Sauber confirmed van der Garde is attempting to enforce an arbitral award having had his original application in Switzerland upheld.

"In a first partial award of a Swiss arbitral tribunal, the application of Mr. van der Garde was upheld, with the tribunal relevantly ordering Sauber to refrain from taking action the effect of which would be to deprive Guido van der Garde of his entitlement to participate in the 2015 Formula One season as one of Sauber’s two nominated race drivers."

However, Sauber says the ruling is not yet final.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.