Adrian Sutil may be showing early signs of quitting Formula 1 after admitting he finds a move to NASCAR appealing. However, the drive and determination to succeed in F1 still remains.
The German driver is currently in his fifth season having started racing in 2007 with Spyker, which was subsequently bought out by Vijay Mallya and renamed Force India.
He has failed to finish higher than 11th in the championship standings and his best result remains fourth at Monza in 2009.
His progression within F1 looked promising with rumours that he could be moving to Mercedes or McLaren in the near future, but his inability to match teammate and rookie Paul di Resta’s pace in qualifying has cast a shadow over such a promotion.
Sutil though, says he plans to remain in F1 for “several years,” but admitted after that a move to America could well be on the cards.
“Maybe [a move to] America for NASCAR, I find that very appealing,” he told Auto und Motor Sport.
“Of course there is still a desire to someday race for one of the big teams, to drive and fight for the title,” added Sutil. “One must always have the goal to win races and world championships. If you no longer think this, you must stop racing immediately.”
On the subject of Di Resta, Sutil acknowledged the young-Scots pace and even compared him to close friend Lewis Hamilton.
“Whether Di Resta is faster, it’s hard to say, I don’t know whether he has improved much since the first race, he was already very fast, very consistent and has made few mistakes. It was like when Lewis [Hamilton] started, he was right there in his first season.”
