Sirotkin has seat fitting at Sauber

2013 F1 season

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Sergey Sirotkin has had a seat-fitting at Sauber as the team considers promoting him to their race line-up for 2014.

The 17-year-old Russian driver was first linked to the team after they agreed a new investment deal with three Russian organisations.

In addition to his seat fitting Sirotkin said he “met the engineers and learned about the car and what happens over a race weekend. I also had a lesson with the steering wheel.”

“I am happy because, if you had told me six months ago that one day I would visit this workshop and meet this team, I would have never believed you,” he added. “It’s great. The dream is so close to becoming reality now.”

Some F1 drivers have expressed doubt over whether Sirotkin, who turns 18 next week, is experienced enough to race in F1. “I wasn’t ready at 18,” said Lewis Hamilton, “and I was pretty good at 18”.

Sirotkin will perform a demonstration run for Sauber in Sochi on September 27th. The city is set to host the first Russian Grand Prix next year.

Pictures: Sergey Sirotkin has seat fitting at Sauber

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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27 comments on “Sirotkin has seat fitting at Sauber”

  1. Straight line test? Free practice sessions?

    1. @sigman1998 He can’t do practice sessions until he gets a superlicence.

      1. I didn’t think about it, sorry.

      2. @keithcollantine Is it possible for Sauber to give some test days to Sirotkin in C30 or some other older Sauber and gather mileage under his belt that way? Would that count for getting a superlicense?

        1. @huhhii The possibilities were covered in the article I linked to in that last comment.

      3. @keithcollantine uhm, didn’t ma qing hua drive fp1 for caterham in china? how did that guy get a superlicence?

          1. ah right, thanks

  2. Despite the fact that I want to recognize the talent of Sirotkin, I really hope that the FIA holds a serious investigation to this possible dangerous situation. It wouldn’t hurt either if they had a talk with the current drivers to see what their vision is on the matter and perhaps even the teams.

    1. @force-maikel – What issue? Young drivers have made their debuts in the past without whatever safety concerns have been raised. Sirotkin is no stranger to powerful open-wheel racing cars, and while a Formula 1 car is more powerful than anything he has experienced to date, there is no evidence that he is a dangerous driver.

      Ever since news broke that Sirotkin could make his debut next year, people have voiced “concerns” over his age and inexperience. What they’re really opposed to is Sirotkin getting promoted to Formula 1 with the help of some money. Ironically enough, Sirotkin has shown enough potential to suggest that he could survive in Formula 1 on the basis if his talent and his talent alone – unlike most of the older, “safer” drivers such as Pic and Chilton and van der Garde.

      Stop trying to make out that there is a safety issue when your real problem is his financial backing.

      1. @prisoner-monkeys Like I said, I want to recognise the talent that is Sirotkin, I have a problem however with problems like maturity and experience. Sure he has done enough races in open wheel racing but not much with a high power cars. Mind you that many drivers in F1 today that debuted at fairly young age had actually driven around with an F1 car before they made their debut, with the exception of Kimi of course. But if memory serves me correct it took quite a while to convince people he was ready enough. Sirotkin has no superlicense, basically that means he won’t get any Fridays in. I don’t want to see someone debuting in F1 that has only done some petty demos.

        Concerning the fact that he only gets this seat because daddy is involved in the Russian-Sauber deal, yes I also don’t like that but I’m keeping in mind this keeps 22 cars on the grid and therefore insuring F1 doesn’t become more mediocre.

        I am also quite disturbed you find the need to tell me what I should or shouldn’t be talking about. If I want to raise questions about the safety regarding Sirotkin debuting in F1 then that is my choice. You just want to see him debut because you absolutely want it, without regard of the consequences. I used to respect you because you did ‘out of the box’ thinking, however it seems you have resorted to dictatorial ranting and trying to deny others of their own opinion. You make some fair points, and I respect that but it seems like it that isn’t something you do anymore.

        Oh how low have you fallen prisoner monkeys…….

        1. Do you honestly think he’s just going to do demo runs before making his debut? At the very least, he will do winter testing. And the team can apply for a temporary superlicence that would allow him to participate in one or two Friday practice sessions.

          Furthermore, Sirotkin’s route into Formula 1 will be no different to any other driver’s: no matter how experienced he is, there will come a point where he lines up on the grid with minimal practice time.

    2. @force-maikel Why should they talk to F1 drivers and teams? They don’t know much about Sirotkin. If anything, they should talk to the people he’s worked with over the last couple of years.

      1. @enigma F1 teams always keep an eye on the junior categories, in fact I’d say they probably know more than us about Sirotkin. But you are right they also should have a talk with people that have worked with him

  3. You are kidding me…..

  4. He may be younger, But something to consider is that he has more open wheel experience than Kimi Raikkonen had when he was brought into F1 by Sauber in 2001.
    Kimi had only done about 23 races, Sirotkin’s done over 100 races over a couple seasons in a couple different categories.

    I mention this because going back to 2001 we were having some of the same discussion about Kimi been too inexperienced & as a result of concerns raised about this the FIA would only grant him a temporary super license.

    I think people need to calm down, Nobody has said anything about him jumping into a race seat. If he does some straght line runs & does a day of testing to get a super license to enable him to do some Friday practice runs in 2014 (Perhaps alongside a continued WSBR program) I don’t see any problem with that.

    Vettel was only about 18 when he started doing Friday practice runs for BMW in 2006 & nobody complained about that, From what I remember anyway.

    1. While I do agree with you, people were always going to complain about his age no matter what the circumstances were. But in this case, I think the reason why it’s stirred things up a bit more is because of the fact that he’s come in due to the Russian link with Sauber together with his age.

      I’m not trying to bring the pay driver debate into this, but Sauber and BMW selected Kimi and Seb respectively (like you mentioned) based on their talent alone, am I correct? Just like Williams brought Bottas in from GP3, they saw something special in his talents and brought him over. Here it is clear why Sauber are bringing him in; it would be different if they were still in dire need of money but had brought in a pay driver OR if they weren’t in such financial difficulties but brought in somebody of his age purely based on talent to nurture him/her.

    2. Nobody has said anything about him jumping into a race seat.

      Actually Sauber came pretty close:

      In particular, a development programme will be set up for the Russian driver Sergey Sirotkin to prepare him as a racing driver for the team in 2014.

      (Previously quoted in part here)

    3. Kimi was also at a world class level in karts until he decided to step into cars for the transition to single seaters, same with Alonso, Button, many drivers from that era…

  5. Is he sitting on a phone book?

    1. It’s his booster seat.

  6. he’s got a nice helmet design!

  7. Sauber have issued some more details and a quote from Sirotkin which had been added to the article.

  8. Money talks. This is the way life goes on right now! Whatever…

  9. So who’s financially backing this guy?

  10. They might need to have another seat fitting in six months if he has a growth spurt ;)

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