De la Rosa returns to F1 grid with BMW-Sauber team

Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa signed for Sauber yesterday, following Michael Schumacher's lead by returning to Formula One racing after a three-year absence and at an age when most contemporaries are enjoying retirement.

Like seven-times world champion Schumacher, who has come out of retirement to join Mercedes at the age of 41, De la Rosa last raced at the end of 2006 but unlike the illustrious German he never willingly quit.

De la Rosa will be 39 next month and starts the season in Bahrain on March 14 as the second oldest driver after Schumacher.

He was a stand-in at McLaren for the last eight races of 2006 after Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya abruptly left for NASCAR and has been that team's test driver for the past seven years.

However, he never gave up on his dream of returning to a full-time race seat.

"I always firmly believed I would be given another chance as a team driver," De la Rosa, who has driven in 71 grands prix, said in a statement after being confirmed as partner to Japanese rookie Kamui Kobayashi.

His appointment ended speculation that Italy's Giancarlo Fisichella would take the vacant seat at Peter Sauber's team as well as narrowing the options of Germany's Nick Heidfeld, who raced for the Swiss-based outfit last year.

Sauber, still officially called BMW-Sauber despite the departure of the German carmaker at the end of last season, had close ties to Ferrari before BMW took over in 2005 and are again using a Ferrari engine and gearbox this year.

Fisichella is the Ferrari reserve, as well as a former Sauber driver, and the Italian team were keen to keep him race fit now that testing is banned during the season.

De la Rosa drove his first grand prix for Arrows at the 1999 race in Australia, and also spent two years at Jaguar, but a second place for McLaren in Hungary in 2006 remains his stand-out result.