Sutil confident of strong season

The German driver will start his fourth consecutive season at the Silverstone-based squad, having enjoyed his strongest campaign to date last year.

"I hope we will have a good season and I am pretty confident we will," said Sutil. "We have had a good winter and a very good development programme so expectations are high.

"The car looks great, we did a positive step with the wind tunnel simulations but let's test and see where we are. I know we need to perform well and from my side I have tried to be perfectly prepared."

He added: "2010 is a really important season and we are very optimistic about going well. When you start a season you always want it to be better than the previous one and I think this year it's important to be consistent from the first race.

"It's the first time we have been completely on schedule so I feel this will be the first season when I can show from the beginning to the end what is possible on the car and what I can do. I'd like to be in the midfield and be competitive from Bahrain."

Sutil, who scored fives points last year, believes stability will help his team continue moving forward after a promising 2009.

"I feel really good in the team, it's like family for me as they know me very well, they know how I work and my strengths and weakness," he added. "With that kind of relationship they can really get the things that suit me and I have confidence in them to do it. At the end of last season I felt very good and it was hard to find a better option for 2010.

"Over the past four years we have of course seen many different changes but when Vijay took over in 2007 it was a step in the right direction. He's committed to go for it and he has his goals.

"Right now we're looking really good, we've sorted out all the issues and this winter has been a consistent working situation so it's a big advantage. It's nice to be one of the few teams who have stability now and can just focus on the racing."