Either Antonio Giovinazzi or Charles Leclerc look poised to replace Pascal Wehrlein at Sauber for 2018, with Ferrari President Sergio Marchionne keen to make the Swiss team a "junior" outfit for the Scuderia.

Last week it was confirmed Sauber would continue their 20-year long partnership with Ferrari, announcing a long-term engine deal using the same spec as in the works car after cancelling a previous agreement made with McLaren's partner Honda.

As part of that deal, Ferrari will be able to use the Hinwil-based team to offer one of their young drivers a race seat, having done the same with the likes of Kimi Raikkonen, Felipe Massa and Sergio Perez in the past.

“It’s a very positive thing for us; it’s a chance to have a junior team. We have a pair of exceptional drivers we need to run,” Marchionne told Italian media in Hungary.

Though it's not impossible both current F2 championship leader Leclerc and Ferrari third driver Giovinazzi could drive for Sauber next season, with the Italian already having done so in the first two races this year, but the link between Marcus Ericsson and Sauber's owners do make it unlikely they would drop the Swede.

However, after only joining Sauber as a last resort following Manor's demise earlier this year, Wehrlein could well face the prospect of no seat in F1 next season.

Commenting on the situation, the Mercedes junior driver told Germany's Bild newspaper: "I have scored all five points and in qualifying, it is 8:2 for me against Ericsson. What more can I do?"

Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff would seem to hint at some plan for the former DTM champion.

"There are lots of movements on the chess board at the moment, I guess in the next two weeks there could be some interesting things happening."

As for Ferrari, President Marchionne also revealed Maranello is ready to expand beyond their current two customers: “We are looking to add to the number of customers for our engines, agreeing with Liberty and the FIA to help new teams to come into F1,” he claimed. “The more we have the better.”