Judge delays ruling in van der Garde case

A Melbourne court on Monday postponed its ruling in a case brought by Dutch driver Giedo van der Garde.

The 29-year-old asked the Victorian supreme court to enforce a recent arbitration ruling in Switzerland, having found that van der Garde's contract to race with Sauber this year is valid.

Sauber's lawyer on Monday argued that compelling the Swiss team to unseat Marcus Ericsson or Felipe Nasr at such short notice was "dangerous", as at least a two-week period of adapting the car for van der Garde would be necessary.

Van der Garde's lawyer hit back that Sauber would actually only need mere days to ready the car.

In fact, van der Garde may run out of time to be ready to drive in Melbourne.

That is because the Australian judge on Monday reportedly reserved his judgement until 10am on Wednesday. The court officially confirmed the news.

That would leave only two days before Friday free practice at Albert Park.

Like van der Garde, Brazilian Nasr and Swede Ericsson were present in court on Monday, and their lawyer said the Sauber race duo was surprised by the Dutchman's legal action.

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Leopold

Leopold Pleijsier founded F1-Fansite.com in 2001 and has followed Formula 1 since the early 1980s. He writes about daily F1 news, race weekends, drivers and the sport’s history.

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