WHAT OH WHAT WILL SAUBER DO?
- 11 March 2015
Sauber’s appeal against the Victorian Supreme Court’s ruling that Giedo van der Garde must drive for the team in 2015 was dismissed late today. This leaves the team theoretically with three contracted race drivers. A bit of a conundrum that.
So what will Sauber do? Try to buy him out with funds they can ill afford to lose? But dropping one of the other drivers will also breach their contracts and that would cost them, again funds they can ill afford to lose due to the money both Ericsson and Nasr are bringing to the team. Will they, as they hinted earlier in the week pull the whole team out of the event if he won. It’s not as if they can ignore the ruling and refuse to run him as the courts would almost certainly impound the teams equipment if they tried. The best hint as to an outcome is that the reports are that Van der Garde is now suing Sauber for breach of contract. It will be interesting to see what sort of deal is done in the next eighteen hours or so before first practice kicks off.
Reuters report stated “Justice Simon Whelan upheld the Supreme Court's decision that Sauber's contract with van der Garde was valid, despite Sauber saying it had sacked the driver in November. The decision is the end of a drawn-out international battle between van der Garde and Sauber. In December, a Swiss court's arbitration tribunal deemed van der Garde's contract with the company to be valid. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court came to the same decision, which Sauber appealed.
Sauber's barrister Rodney Garratt, QC, argued if van der Garde was reinstated, the team would be in breach of its contract with its drivers Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson. He also pointed out that van der Garde had not practised since November and that as Sauber's Ferraris are custom-fitted for each driver, there would not be enough time to reconfigure one for the Dutch driver.
But lawyers for van der Garde hit back, reminding the court that the contract had been deemed valid. His client would be "personally devastated" if he was not allowed to drive, Jim Peters, QC, said.”
Interesting times…
Sam Snape
12/03/2015