Adrian Sutil

Lore & Background

Born and raised in Starnberg, Sutil started karting aged 14 and moved into single seater racing in 2002 in the Swiss Formula Ford series where he won the title. He moved up into Formula Masters Austria and started one race before stepping into Formula BMW ADAC in 2003. Sutil then raced in the Formula 3 Euroseries, where he was the runner-up to Lewis Hamilton in 2005. He went to Japan in 2006 to race in the All-Japan Formula Three Championship and also finished third in the Macau Grand Prix. Having been involved in the Midland F1 test team, Sutil was promoted to a race seat for the new Spyker F1 team in 2007. Sutil continued to race with the team under their new guise Force India in 2008 where he remained until 2011. Having made his return to the sport in 2013 again with Force India, he competed in the 2014 season with the Sauber team.

Reader's Guide

Adrian Sutil was born on 11 January 1983 in Starnberg, Bavaria, West Germany. His parents are both professional musicians: his German mother, Monika, and his Uruguayan father, Jorge. He has two brothers, named Daniel and Raphael. A talented pianist, Sutil speaks fluent German, English, and Spanish and a little Italian.

He started karting at the age of 14 before moving up to Swiss Formula Ford 1800 in 2002. He won all 12 rounds of the season from pole and added five wins in the Formula Masters Austria championship. When Sutil moved up to the Formula BMW ADAC championship in 2003 he finished in sixth place in the series, but with no wins. The following season he stepped up to the Formula 3 Euroseries with Colin Kolles' team.

Although he scored only twice, the connection he made with Kolles would prove useful in the future. He moved to the ASM team at the final round of the year. Sutil stayed with ASM for 2005 and was joined by British driver Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton won more races than Sutil, but the German was runner-up to Hamilton and the Briton's only serious competitor in the championship and at the Marlboro Masters of Formula Three at Zandvoort.

Sutil missed the last two rounds of the 2005 Euroseries after joining A1 Team Germany for the inaugural A1 Grand Prix series. He raced for them at three events in Portugal, Australia and Dubai, his best result being two twelfth places. Sutil spent 2006 racing in Japan and won the All-Japan Formula Three Championship. He showed a very strong performance all season.

He also finished third in the Macau Formula Three Grand Prix and made a one-off appearance in Japanese Super GT. In January 2006, he was confirmed as one of the three test drivers for the new Midland F1 Racing team, along with Markus Winkelhock and Giorgio Mondini. This came thanks to his connections with Colin Kolles, who was then running the team. Sutil appeared for the team as the third driver at the European, French and Japanese Grands Prix.

By the time of his third appearance, the outfit had been bought by Spyker Cars. At the end of the year, he was promoted to second driver for the 2007 season, having been signed on a multi-year contract by the Spyker MF1 Team. During 2007, Sutil out-qualified and out-raced his team-mate Albers at all Grands Prix before the Dutchman was replaced by Sutil's countryman Markus Winkelhock.