Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsSauber

Sauber fails to run amid van der Garde case

Sauber failed to run throughout the first practice session for the Australian Grand Prix as it continued to attempt to resolve the court case involving Giedo van der Garde.

Van der Garde successfully argued that Sauber had reneged on a deal for him to race for the team this season, with Sauber's appeal being rejected on Thursday. As a result, the team has been ordered to do everything in its power to run van der Garde, who needed to finalise his superlicence and have a seat fitting in order to be able to race in Sunday's Australian Grand Prix.

Contempt of court hearings continued on Friday, with van der Garde's lawyers calling for Sauber team principal Monisha Kaltenborn to be committed to prison as punishment.

The Dutchman was present in the paddock on Friday morning ahead of the first practice session, carrying out a seat fit while wearing Marcus Ericsson's overalls. However, there was no official announcement from the team as to whether it had made a change to its drivers for this weekend.

FP1 took place with Ericsson and team-mate Felipe Nasr listed on the timing screens, but neither driver took to the track during the session. Sauber did not offer a reason for not running.

Click here for Thursday's gallery from the Australian Grand Prix

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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.