Sutil: New rules will suit my style

With drivers now forced to start races carrying 150kg of fuel on board, following the ban on refuelling, cars' handling characteristics are expected to alter significantly as the weight reduces during grands prix.

Speaking in an interview for AUTOSPORT Plus, Sutil, who has produced a number of strong performances in wet and changeable conditions, believes this could play into his hands this year.

"I never have real problems changing my driving style, I think that's an advantage I have," he said. "You can see it in the wet, it doesn't matter what conditions, I sit in the car and I drive as fast as possible.

"That could be a benefit this year, because the car will change quite a lot during the runs - you will have oversteer, you will have understeer, heavy car, light car, and you need to adjust for all situations.

"We've heard mainly negative things about the new rules, but for sure there are also quite interesting things that can happen. I'm actually pretty open to that and I'm looking forward to the races."

Sutil added that he considers Force India to be one of the better teams in the field at reacting to strategic shifts during a race, and believes this could prove to be a critical factor in gaining race position.

"It's all open," said Sutil. "You have less work before a race, because you don't know... All the strategies are open and you can just plan to be in this window of tyre changing. I think the communication with the team is much more important and it's all about the timing.

"If there is a car in front of you and he's just waiting until you decide to go in, then he reacts as well, maybe you just have one lap to overtake this guy. It will be tricky and a lot of people will be copying strategies at the right moment.

"It will be different and it will take a few races to learn about all the strategies," he added. "You can do some race simulations in testing but it's never the same once you go to a race, anything can happen."

Sutil explained in the interview that he expects the nature of the racing to change fundamentally in 2010, and shift from sprints linked by pitstops to a more endurance-type of event.

"For sure the times of sprint racing are over," he said. "You have to take it easy, make the tyres last as long as possible and save some fuel. In the last 20-30 minutes you can start to push and take it to the limit. It's more endurance style racing that's required at the moment.

"You need to change certain things and probably also your driving style. I think it's a new challenge, but probably not the most interesting challenge. I love to go to the limit and push it all the race through, that's what I was used to in the last few years. It's a new experience probably for most people in F1."