There was embarrassment at Sauber today as the Swiss team confessed that it has already forgotten why it hired Nick Heidfeld.
‘I’m sure there was a reason to bring him on board,’ said a team spokesman. ‘It’s just that we can’t remember what it was. I think it might have been something to do with his nice hair.’
However, other team members believe the German driver’s return is for slightly different reasons. ‘I’m pretty sure we had a meeting about it,’ said one insider. ‘And the conclusion was that we needed a driver with a sort of funny scruffy beard. Jenson Button is busy so Nick was the obvious choice.’
Meanwhile, a source close to the team boss himself offered an alternative reason, completely unrelated to facial hair; ‘In 2009 Nick programmed Peter Sauber’s Sky+ box for him,’ our mole said. ‘He then left the team and ever since the damn thing has just been filling up with episodes of Loose Women and a documentary about ocelots. When Peter tried to record a programme about Concorde last week and came home to find he’d actually got five editions of Come Dine With Me that he’d already seen it was the final straw. Getting Nick back was his only option.’
Sniff Petrol tried to contact the man Heidfeld will replace, Spanish driver Pedro de la Rosa, but he’d fallen into a river. Again.
