Sauber: Honda switch not a backwards step

The Swiss outfit is to end a long-term partnership it has with Ferrari to become a Honda customer outfit next year alongside McLaren.

But although some have questioned why Sauber would want to move Honda, which is behind in terms of reliability and power, team principal Monisha Kaltenborn says the decision is based on the potential gains it thinks can be made over the next months.

When asked by Motorsport.com about the cynics who cannot understand the benefit of switching to F1’s worst current engine, Kaltenborn said: “That is very momentary, how you are summarising it. That is as of now. Nobody knows what is going to be the future.

“We are absolutely confident that Honda will make improvements and sort out their issues. We are convinced that it is going to happen.

“We were in a similar situation in 2014 where there was big difference in the competitiveness of the engine, but that was no reason for us to start questioning or criticising because we knew Ferrari was doing everything they could, and they did. These things happen.

“Nobody knows what is going to be in six months and we just feel that from the overall opportunities that we have there, it strengthens or fits more into the way we want to go.”

Sauber has hinted at the prospect of technological partnerships with Honda outside of the F1 sphere, and has not ruled out the idea of running Honda young drivers in the future.

“We will see,” added Kaltenborn. “It is far too early to say that, in these kind of partnerships as we have also done in the past, you discuss drivers with your partner and you take advice of there’s on board.

“At the end of the day it is the team’s responsibility, so this is how it will also be there. We have just started so it is too early to say there.”

Difficult choice

Kaltenborn also said that it had been emotionally difficult for Sauber to decide to bring an end to its partnership with Ferrari – having been with the Italian manufacturer in two long spells from 1997 to 2005 and again since 2010.

This season Sauber has used year-old Ferrari power units.

“It is not an easy step,” she added. “If you look at all what we have gone through, and particularly with people who were there also for long at Ferrari before, it does have its emotional side to it as well.

“It might sound easy to say we are ending it, but Ferrari has been very helpful towards us, particularly since the team was bought back from BMW [at the end of 2009] because they were very difficult times.

“Before that, we had a lot of co-operation with Ferrari when we still had Petronas with our partner. There was a lot of work done in terms of development of fuel and lubricants, so it was a very intensive partnership. So not an easy step also emotionally.”

Additional reporting by Ben Anderson