New BMW Sauber driver Kamui Kobayashi has spoke of his delight about driving for the team full time in F1 next season, and says that he will look to work closely with his new team mate Pedro de la Rosa to help the team succeed.
Kobayashi comes into his first full season of Formula One after making two appearances for Toyota at the end of 2009 as a substitute for the injured Timo Glock, and joins a 'BMW' Sauber team that have lost BMW and almost all of their sponsors for the new season.
But Kobayashi, who impressed many viewers with his end-of-season Toyota cameo, was still delighted that the move to the team had come off, particularly as when they started negotiating with Peter Sauber, his team wasn't even on the entry list.
"We started negotiating after Abu Dhabi," Kobayashi explained in an interview with F1.com, "But the problem was that the team didn't have an entry at that time so Peter [Sauber] told me to be patient and wait.
Once the team had its entry confirmed, we finalised the negotiations and signed the contract."
He added that: "I was thinking that I was very lucky but Peter didn't say anything like that, so I know what is expected from me - to be professional and work very hard."
Kobayashi will be joined at the team in 2010 by former McLaren test driver Pedro de la Rosa, and the Japanese driver said that he will be looking to learn from the experience of the Spaniard.
"He's bringing a lot of experience from McLaren," Kobayashi grinned, "He knows how to work the car, how to push development and I need to look over his shoulder.
"We have to work together and develop the car together. I know Pedro quite well and I'm sure that we'll form a great team - something of a 'family team'."
The team had an impressive start to pre-season testing with their new C29, with Kobayashi and de la Rosa ending each day of last week's Valencia test second in the times, behind only Ferrari.
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