The Sauber F1 Team will be forced to continue to run the 2016 Ferrari power unit this season, due to the 2017 version not being able to fit into their C36, mainly down to changes in its dimensions.
Due to the progress made with the 2017 power units, the plan to use the 2016 unit to score early points appears to have backfired on the team, with Sauber the slowest of all teams during the first race of the season, and Monisha Kaltenborn admitted that she expected to be better than they were in Australia.
However, the Team Principal of the Hinwil-based team says that she wants to see the relative performance between Sauber and the rest of the field before she gauges the actual gap between them, especially as they have upgrade packages coming in the next few rounds.
“It’s far too early to say because Australia is definitely not a representative track,” said Kaltenborn on Autosport. “We need to wait a couple of races, and then we’ll see how big it [the gap] really is.
“We hoped we were a bit better, because we’ve been following some new concepts. Of course others started [work on the 2017 rules] earlier, they have understood after the tests where they need to do a few changes.
“We need to develop that now, and we have a development plan in place. We have bits and pieces coming [for the Chinese GP], and then we have an intense testing programme in Bahrain.
“We are planning a bigger package in Barcelona and then we’ll take it from there.”
