The Supreme Court of Zurich has upheld Adrian Sutil’s legal battle against the Sauber F1 Team after the team reneged on their promise to continue racing for them in 2015.
The German driver joined the team ahead of the 2014 season following his release from the Sahara Force India team, failing to score a point all season in the first ever point-less year for the Swiss team, but the team extended his contract into 2015 only to see the team backtrack and hire Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson instead.
The team had a very public legal fight with Giedo van der Garde ahead of last season’s Australian Grand Prix following Sauber’s decision not to promote the Dutchman to the race team as previously agreed after a year as reserve driver in 2014, but while Sutil’s court battle has been more private, it is another contractual issue the team have seemingly brought on themselves.
As well as losing his promised drive, Sutil is claiming unpaid monies totalling more than $3.5million, and while Sauber argued that the German did not perform as he was expected to on track, and that he unnecessarily criticised the team for under-performing, the court sided with Sutil to allow the case to proceed.
