Adrian Sutil is not ruling out a change of teams as his career threatens to stall at Force India.
The German has been at Force India since before the Vijay Mallya takeover, and several times he has been linked with a team switch as he dominated his previous teammates.
But in 2011 the 28-year-old has been joined by the meteoric rookie and reigning DTM champion Paul di Resta, who at the first three grands prix of his career outqualified the highly rated Sutil.
Sutil likened his recent career to "the stock market"; capitalising at the right moments.
"You want to continue and make the next step up — either with a new team or with the same team, you still want the next step," The National quotes him as saying at the Chinese grand prix.
"In a way we did that last year — 2010 was a good season for me. The problem was the last few races, and that is where you want to impress," added Sutil.
He denied he if fazed by di Resta’s stirring early form, but at the same time pointed out that the Scot is not a normal F1 rookie.
"I always want to compete against the best --- I am not here to compete against drivers who can’t drive in a straight line," said Sutil.
He added: "He (di Resta) is not like a typical rookie. He had four years in DTM with a factory team. It is not like he is someone to come out of Formula 3 or GP2 and doing mistakes."