Monisha Kaltenborn is convinced Sauber will have further chances to claim strong race results over the remainder of the season to make up for Spa.
Kaltenborn confident team will have opportunities to make up for Spa disappointment
Monisha Kaltenborn is convinced Sauber will have further chances to claim strong race results over the remainder of the season after the team saw both of their cars effectively wiped out at the start in Belgium.
The independent Swiss outfit had looked set to close right up on Mercedes in the Constructors' Championship from the best starting positions in the team's history in Sunday's race but both the front row-starting Kamui Kobayashi and team-mate Sergio Perez - who had started fourth - were innocent victims in the Romain Grosjean-triggered pile-up.
With Mercedes going on to salvage seventh place through Michael Schumacher, and Force India securing their best result of the season to move within 21 points of Sauber in sixth, the Hinwil-based outfit lost momentum in the standings. However, team CEO Kaltenborn was taking the positives from the weekend.
Speaking to
skysports.com after the end of Sunday's race, she said: "I think probably that's the only thing which can give us some consolation because the gap to the front [Mercedes] has not become that much bigger and to the back now Force India has caught up on Williams [but remains 21 points behind Sauber].
"But looking at how the race pace here was and had we not been affected by these incidents I think we would have very much been there and been competitive. So I am optimistic about the next races."
Although Sauber appeared to make a clear step forward in pace at Spa, Kaltenborn revealed that the car actually hadn't had significant updates added to it since the British GP in early July and that the package was now simply coming into its own.
"I think we have for quite a while had this car [had good performance]," she said.
"We have not really changed anything on the development since the last race because Silverstone we had our last major package which we brought in and that's [the performance] showing now, so why should that suddenly go?
"It's just in qualifying we made some mistakes or things didn't work out right, so why should that [not] change?"
Kaltenborn added that additional upgrades would be arriving from Singapore onwards at the end of the month.
"Monza we have our low development package like everyone else and then we will be still having some updates for the overseas races," she said.
The Sauber chief also confirmed that the team were looking into the reasons why Kobayashi's brakes started overheating while the Japanese was stationary on the front row waiting for the grid to form up before the lights.
"I don't know as yet because it is still being investigated," Kaltenborn explained. "He overheated the brakes and we don't know why that happened.
"Then he had wheel spinning and he complained of having no grip basically so we need to find out why that happened."
