After a successful outing in Fiorano in a 2-year-old Sauber and an association with the Circuit of the Americas, it looks like Simona de Silvestro’s racing career in F1 may have ground to halt over…what else? Money.
According to AUTOSPORT, the former Indycar racer has stumbled into contractual problems that have impacted the 90-day period to secure her superlicense has now expired and the team told AUTOSPORT:
“Simona’s driving programme is not being continued due to financial reasons on her side.
“Everybody in the team who worked with her during the last six months is very disappointed it came to this point, because they liked working with her.
“We are now looking at other possibilities for Simona to continue working with the team, but that will take time.”
That’s unfortunate because it would have been a great opportunity for Simona to move into Formula 1. Her Indycar career was up and down but her race craft had been honed and she would be a likely candidate for the opportunity.
The team has not ruled her out as a reserve driver role but time will tell and in the end, it comes down to how much cash she can raise just for the privilege of saying she’s a reserve driver. You can see where these reserve driver folks start to lose patience. Paying to sit around and do some sim work is expensive.
Hat Tip: AUTOSPORT
