Sauber wants to draw inspiration from Force India’s trajectory
The Sauber team, strengthened by its reinforced partnership with Ferrari under the Alfa Romeo banner, would like to follow the model of Force India and Mercedes, who have managed to achieve consistent top-level performances in Formula 1 for several seasons.
By signing a strengthened partnership with Ferrari under the Alfa Romeo name, Sauber aims to develop a strong association with the Italian manufacturer, similar to what Force India manages to do alongside Ferrari.
Frédéric Vasseur, the sporting director of the Swiss team, does not hide his ambition to return to the midfield in the short term: « Force India is a good model because they work with Mercedes more or less with the same intensity as we do with Ferrari. They work with drivers, in close collaboration, and also work on the engine and other parts, and it’s more or less the same approach as Sauber. It’s a good example of what we could achieve and what the project could be. » he expressed in the pages of Autosport.
It took Force India some time to get there, and remember the time when they were still called Spyker and struggled to be in the Top 10. They had a long-term project, something serious, and year after year they came back to the forefront and now they are quite consistent. We must approach things the same way, we need to be patient; it’s a three to five-year project, specifies the Frenchman.
Of course, Vasseur keeps a cool head and knows that it will take time for Sauber to see the first results of its strengthened partnership with Ferrari: « Just because you sign an engineer from Ferrari or Mercedes doesn’t mean the car will perform much better next week. When you’re outside the company, it’s sometimes hard to understand and you might feel like you can buy performance. Without the budget, you’re not competing with Mercedes, but you need to have a long-term project, you need to know where you have to go and how you have to do it. »
The Swiss team would like to continue its momentum from the end of last season where it managed to catch up a bit with the competition, especially Haas: « We were more or less far from the teams ahead of us, even though we managed to catch up a bit in the last races. My first goal is to close the gap because we need to get back in the race, we need to be able to fight with the teams around us. I think we will be able to close that gap. Then, it’s hard to know if we’ll be fighting for 8th, 9th, or 10th places, but that will also depend on the other teams and their projects. » concludes Vasseur.
