Van der Garde waits on Superlicence

The Dutchman recently signed as a test driver for the Dutch owned outfit, having quit Super Aguri, and the team are hoping that the necessary paperwork can be completed in time to give him a run in Melbourne.

Spyker team principal Colin Kolles said that nothing was definite yet, but he was hopeful that van der Garde would drive for them.

"We don't know yet, to be honest," he said when asked by autosport.com about his team's third driver plans for Australia. "Markus Winkelhock will be there and Giedo van der Garde will be there, and then we will see.

"For the moment Markus is our reserve driver and Giedo is planning to run on the Fridays. We have applied for the Superlicence and we have to wait for that. If everything is in place he will do the Friday."

Kolles said that the team hoped to have a third driver at every race, although they had not yet finalised their plans. He confirmed, however, that Fairuz Fauzy would do a session in Malaysia, with Adrian Valles pencilled in for Spain.

"We are generally running to plan a third driver only in the morning session, but it depends on the circumstances whether we run it or not.

"In Malaysia we plan to have a Malaysian driver, in Spain we will have a Spanish driver. So yes, Fauzy for Malaysia and for Barcelona, Valles."