Sauber Aiming to be Best of the Rest

The Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team are targeting fourth in the 2019 F1 championship. It is clear that the ‘big three’ of Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull are untouchable and 4th is the best they can hope for.

Team chairman Pascal Picci set that as the goal after a surge in Sauber’s increased competitiveness in the wake of its new tie-up with Ferrari.

“It is our ambition next year to be the fourth team,” he said. “This is our ambition.

“I know I exaggerate, Fred is telling me that I am! But if you don’t have dreams, then you don’t succeed very often.”

This season Sauber have been much stronger and more reliable due to having this year’s Ferrari power units. They have also benefitted from strong showings by both of the team’s drivers Charles Leclerc and Marcus Ericsson.

Between them the pair have amassed 18 points for Sauber in the first 12 races of 2018, compared to just five for the whole of the previous season. As a result, Sauber are no longer languishing at the bottom of the constructors championship. That ‘honour’ goes to Williams Martini this season.

However the Swiss squad are still far away from fellow Ferrari customer, Haas. The American outfit is currently lying in fifth place. According to Picci, that will be Sauber’s objective for next season.

“We are really at our own pace, which was our view from the start,” he said. “We are totally committed to success, and we will do anything for this.”

“People keep forgetting that last year we couldn’t develop anything at all, because time was very short,”.

According to him, former team principal Monisha Kaltenborn’s decision to use year-old Ferrari engines in 2017 was a ad idea.

“Was it a good decision to have the old engine last season? I am very clear today with my experience, it was a terrible mistake we did,” he said.

“Of course, people made the wrong opinion with what they were seeing last year. It is a big difference.

“This is the first car that we were able to produce,” he continued. “The concept was fantastic.

“All of a sudden we have a better performing engine. Haas is doing a much better job than us in terms of results, but we keep pushing to be there.

“You will be seeing that there will be improvements more and more frequently, regularly,” he promised.