{"id":14579,"date":"2011-12-12T07:00:27","date_gmt":"2011-12-12T12:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=14579"},"modified":"2011-12-12T07:00:27","modified_gmt":"2011-12-12T12:00:27","slug":"rumour-hints-kobayashi-out-bianchi-in-at-sauber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/rumour-hints-kobayashi-out-bianchi-in-at-sauber\/","title":{"rendered":"Rumour hints Kobayashi out, Bianchi in at Sauber"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jules Bianchi has emerged as a surprise contender for a race seat at Sauber next year.<\/p>\n<p>The rumour follows reports in the Swiss press last week that the place reserved for the Hinwil based team&#8217;s confirmed 2012 driver Kamui Kobayashi could now be in doubt.<\/p>\n<p>Blick newspaper said the speculation had &#8220;surprised&#8221; Sauber officials, mere days after boss Peter Sauber said the driver lineup is not changing.<\/p>\n<p>Rumours in the French media, including sport365.fr, insist however that Frenchman Bianchi has a chance.<\/p>\n<p>The 22-year-old is Sauber engine supplier Ferrari&#8217;s official reserve driver, and managed by Nicolas Todt &#8212; the father of former Ferrari boss and now FIA president Jean Todt.<\/p>\n<p>The move would pair Bianchi with Ferrari&#8217;s other development driver Sergio Perez, with the duo both tipped as leading candidates to succeed Felipe Massa at Maranello beyond 2012.<\/p>\n<p>If the rumour is confirmed, it is great news for France, whose presence in F1 had dwindled dramatically in recent years.<\/p>\n<p>Already, Romain Grosjean and Charles Pic are signed up for 2012, Jean-Eric Vergne is rising through the junior ranks at Red Bull, and Paul Ricard is tipped as a possible grand prix venue in the not-too-distant future.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #888888;\"><em>\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jules Bianchi has emerged as a surprise contender for a race seat at Sauber next year. The rumour follows reports in the Swiss press last week that the place reserved for the Hinwil based team&#8217;s confirmed 2012 driver Kamui Kobayashi could now be in doubt. Blick newspaper said the speculation had &#8220;surprised&#8221; Sauber officials, mere &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[2120,3],"tags":[5262,5340,1675,97,243,114],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14579"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14579"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14580,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14579\/revisions\/14580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}