Simona de Silvestro will be moving on from IndyCar after four years in the championship, and has been confirmed Friday as a Sauber-affiliated Formula One driver for 2014.
The preparation isn’t racing-related for the moment, as she’s not been placed by Sauber into a GP2 or World Series by Renault team. It will involve on-track testing, simulator training and mental and physical preparation as part of working to gain a superlicense and move into an F1 race seat in 2015.
“This is a major step towards me achieving a lifelong dream and I’m so happy to have the opportunity to take this step with such a great team,” the 25-year-old Swiss driver said in a release. “The Sauber F1 Team is a team with a legacy and the only Swiss team in Formula One, which I think makes this even more exciting.
The tie-in is a natural one; it’s a Swiss team, with F1’s lone female team principal in Monisha Kaltenborn.
“I can’t thank Monisha Kaltenborn and Peter Sauber enough for their support and belief in my abilities and for giving me this chance,” de Silvestro said. “I’m thrilled to have this extremely unique platform on which to prepare myself to take on the challenge.”
Kaltenborn didn’t elaborate more on the role of “affiliated driver” – the team already has Giedo van der Garde and Sergey Sirotkin in the pipeline behind 2014 race drivers Adrian Sutil and Esteban Gutierrez – but did admit she was pleased for de Silvestro.
“After four years in IndyCar, Simona’s ambition is to enter Formula one in 2015,” Kaltenborn said. “We regard her as a very talented race driver, and we, therefore, decided to take her on board as an “affiliated driver” and support her on her way to the pinnacle of motorsport.”
De Silvestro was in Austin to meet the Sauber team at this year’s U.S. Grand Prix. What at the time seemed a PR promotion, has, indeed, turned into so much more.