Auto123.com - Helping you drive happy

F1: Sauber Team ready for better things this season

|
Get the best interest rate
Khatir Soltani
Sauber F1 Team CEO Monisha Kaltenborn is convinced that the Swiss team will continue to impress and score more points until the end of the 2012 F1 season.

Kaltenborn, now a shareholder of the team is happy to see that Sergio Pérez and Kamui Kobayashi have scored 100 points so far this year in comparison to just 44 last year.

“Our technical people and engineers have succeeded in building a fine car in the Sauber C31-Ferrari. The weak points of last year’s car have been almost completely eradicated, while the ongoing development of the C31 is taking place at a very high level and extremely efficiently,” said Kaltenborn in a Sauber press release.

“Added to which, stability has returned to the team after a very difficult phase for the company in which we had to deal with the withdrawal of BMW in 2009. Another factor that should not be understated is that our two young drivers now both have another year of experience under their belts,” she added.

F1 Sauber Monisha Kaltenborn
Monisha Kaltenborn. (Photo: Sauber F1 Team)

Kaltenborn, who holds a master degree in international business law says the privately-run Sauber team can battle against the much bigger teams such as Ferrari and McLaren.

“We are working extremely efficiently. The extensive package of upgrades we introduced for the races at Barcelona and Silverstone were successful,” she explained.

“Our progress at the race track has met our expectations and calculations in full, which is a major feather in the cap of our engineers. And there’s still more to come from the C31. We’ll be bringing another series of upgrades to the upcoming races in Asia, at the same time as pushing ahead with the development of next year’s car, of course. So it’s not only a question of the pace of development, but more particularly efficiency. Here, the issue of costs clearly plays a critical role,” she said.

Kaltenborn also strongly supports the idea of seriously limit the costs in Formula 1.

“There is an urgent need for action on this issue. For the majority of the teams in F1 the financial challenges are huge. The Sauber F1 Team is very much in favour of introducing measures to push down costs further still,” she said.

“First and foremost, we hope that the Resource Restriction Agreement will be implemented and monitored effectively from 2013 onwards. It is also important that engine costs from 2014 are kept at a sensible level for the privately-run teams. A constructive move here would be to draw up a roadmap setting out the direction of technical development over a period of several years. That would make planning easier and reduce costs substantially,” Kaltenborn declared.

F1 Sauber Monisha Kaltenborn Peter Sauber
Peter Sauber and Monisha Kaltenborn. (Photo: Sauber F1 Team)

Kaltenborn is also convinced that the small Swiss team will deliver more brilliant drives in the last seven races of the season.

“We’re getting stronger all the time, and I’m anticipating that we’ll continue to deliver good performances through the final third of the season. Before the season got under way we said we wanted to significantly improve our position in the World Championship. Taking our seventh place in the constructors’ standings in 2011 as a starting point, that would mean finishing fifth this year. That’s an ambitious target, but you have to set your sights high. And I have every confidence in our team,” she concluded.



Khatir Soltani
Khatir Soltani
Automotive expert
  • Over 6 years experience as a car reviewer
  • Over 50 test drives in the last year
  • Involved in discussions with virtually every auto manufacturer in Canada