Adrian Sutil on the life of an F1 driver

Formula One (F1) driver Adrian Sutil found himself promoted to lead driver of the Force India team when former team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella left for a dream move to Ferrari. In an exclusive interview with The Engineer’s Ellie Zolfagharifard, the German racer talks about fast-changing technology, his relationship with his engineers and why risk will always be a key part of the sport he loves.

When I went into F1 four years ago as a test driver the technology was already really advanced. Last year we had major rule changes. I would say until then we generally always had the same rules, the car looked very similar and everybody knew how to go to their limits with their car. When the changes came into place, suddenly the cars looked very different. What’s very obvious this year is that once you do an update for a car it can suddenly make half a second in a lap or even more. Sometimes you go in a wind tunnel, test a car there and put some aerodynamic parts on and go ‘wow’, so there are big changes and big steps because everything is new.