Sutil making his mark at Spyker.

While the rumour mill grinds into overtime around his more experienced team-mate, Adrian Sutil is quietly impressing his bosses at Spyker F1 - despite two first lap incidents in three races.

The German made contact with fellow rookie Anthony Davidson in Australia, and was then left with nowhere to go when Scott Speed and Jenson Button had their incidents in Bahrain, but has made his mark on the Spyker team by rivalling Christijan Albers for pace in all facets of the race weekend.

"I don't really know what happened [in Bahrain], but he was just behind Button and Speed and I don't think he could avoid them," F1 director Michiel Mol admitted to the team's website, "But I'm very happy that they managed to repair the car, and he was able to finish. He did pretty consistent lap times, and that's more important than position at the moment.

"After three races, he's clearly shown himself to be a fast and consistent driver, and you almost don't notice any more that it's his rookie year. He's doing an excellent job, and let's hope that we have a good and positive fight between him and Christijan on the track."

Sutil admits that, while his start to the season has been frustrating, he is enjoying the F1 experience and insists that things are only going to get better as both he and the team continue to develop.

I have no worries about the future, we will be up there," he said, "At the moment, we're not fast enough to race other cars, but everybody is happy with my race performance.

"I think it will be better [in Spain]. We tested there in the winter, and we have one more test coming up, so I hope it will be easier. We already know about the set-up and the balance of the car, and maybe we can also see an improvement with the new aero package that we'll have there. We'll try to be more competitive."

With three weeks off between races, the German has had the chance to reflect on his start to the year.

"The free time is the time when you start to learn, and make progress," he explained, "It's a good time to have a look at everything, the data and so on. You can re-set your mind, and think about everything. But, right now, I can't wait until the next race. I'm always looking forward, and I'm just enjoying F1 at the moment!"

Albers, meanwhile, has been at the centre of speculation that his seat is under threat - despite the fact that he helped to bring in a proportion of the team's sponsorship over the past two seasons.

The Dutchman has struggled to exert his authority over Sutil and, this week, found himself mired in suggestions that he had just one more race to prove his worth before being replaced by test and reserve driver Markus Winkelhock. Although all sides have since denied that Albers had been handed an ultimatum, it is understood that the Dutchman drove with a stomach bug in Malaysia, hampering his performance there just weeks after a moment of inattention caused him to crash out of the season-opener in Melbourne.