Sauber Team Principal Fred Vasseur has claimed the design for the 2018 car will feature “less than 20 percent” of their current contender as the Swiss team look to return to competitiveness.
Throughout the European season, Sauber has continued to slip further and further behind the midfield as they have become the perennial backmarkers on the grid due to the effects of last year’s financial problems and the new owners looking to rebuild the Hinwil operation.
Furthermore, their development has been stumped by the now long out-dated 2016 Ferrari engine as well as delays when bringing new parts to a car that was already quite some way behind due to their late start.
Hopes for a recovery next year are reasonable, as they will use the most up to date power unit from their long-time partners following a new deal that was following a cancelled contract with Honda, and respected designer Jorg Zander is in charge having arrived last year.
“The car is already in the windtunnel and I think we are doing a decent job,” Vasseur, who replaced Monisha Kaltenborn earlier this summer claimed. “We are still discussing the parameters of the Ferrari collaboration, but [the carry over from this year will] probably be less than 20%.
“The current one [car] is 2016 so to try and carry over to 2018… we have to start from scratch. It’s also the reason the car [has] long [been] in the windtunnel. The global picture of the car will be completely different.”
It is believed Sauber will be welcoming at least one of Ferrari’s young drivers for next year as part of their engine deal but whether Charles Leclerc, Antonio Giovinazzi or both will get the chance to prove themselves in the midfield is hard to know.
“It’s always difficult to have a target because it will depend on the guys around us on the grid,” Vasseur claimed. “It will be difficult to come back into the midfield. It’s a big step and there is no big change in the regulations for next year.
“All the other teams will have much better carryover than us. For me, the biggest challenge will be to increase the size of the company, to increase the performance of each department.
“If we’re able to do this, we will improve on the grid. The group in front of us is very close, I want to come back into the fight.”
