{"id":7811,"date":"2010-08-18T07:15:26","date_gmt":"2010-08-18T11:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=7811"},"modified":"2010-08-18T07:15:26","modified_gmt":"2010-08-18T11:15:26","slug":"mercedes-may-not-replace-heidfeld-as-reserve-driver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/mercedes-may-not-replace-heidfeld-as-reserve-driver\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercedes may not replace Heidfeld as reserve driver"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mercedes might not appoint a formal replacement for its departed F1 reserve driver Nick Heidfeld.<\/p>\n<p>The Brackley based team agreed to release 33-year-old Heidfeld so that he can become Pirelli&#8217;s permanent tyre development tester.<\/p>\n<p>The German kicked off his new role at Mugello on Tuesday, with photographs depicting a dark-helmeted Heidfeld driving a white Toyota TF109 with low-key Pirelli signage and unbranded tyres.<\/p>\n<p>Spain&#8217;s daily AS sports newspaper said reigning F2 champion Andy Soucek, who recently ended his contract as Virgin&#8217;s reserve driver, is a candidate to replace Heidfeld.<\/p>\n<p>But Germany&#8217;s Auto Motor und Sport said Mercedes has not decided whether a single replacement for the veteran of 167 grands prix will be appointed.<\/p>\n<p>Turun Sanomat, the major Finnish daily, said the team has no immediate plans to replace Heidfeld.<\/p>\n<p>The appointment of a full-time reserve driver is not required by the sporting regulations, but each teams must field two drivers at each event.<\/p>\n<p>If Mercedes does not appoint a permanent replacement for Heidfeld, it is likely the German marque will nominate a reserve driver on a race-by-race basis.<\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"color: #c0c0c0;\">\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mercedes might not appoint a formal replacement for its departed F1 reserve driver Nick Heidfeld. The Brackley based team agreed to release 33-year-old Heidfeld so that he can become Pirelli&#8217;s permanent tyre development tester. The German kicked off his new role at Mugello on Tuesday, with photographs depicting a dark-helmeted Heidfeld driving a white Toyota &#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":[3],"tags":[383,5262,5340,34,98],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7811"}],"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=7811"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7812,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7811\/revisions\/7812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}