Sauber needs upgrade to target points - Nasr

Felipe Nasr says Sauber needs to update its car before it can realistically target scoring more points in normal race situations.

After a strong start to the season, Sauber has faded to the back of the midfield due to a lack of development, with Nasr failing to start at Silverstone and Marcus Ericsson finishing 11th. With Sauber now only ahead of Toro Rosso, McLaren and Manor in the constructors’ championship, Nasr says the team’s planned upgrade in Singapore is required to allow it to fight for points again.

“A lot of other teams already got ahead of us so this is something we cannot control, but we’ll try to do our best until there,” Nasr said. “We’ll see what happens in Spa as well, maybe in Spa and Monza we can have a chance there, but if it’s a normal race situation I don’t see it happening.

“If it’s an eventful race like it was [at Silverstone] - you have other cars missing out, you have cars having problems, you have the conditions playing up a little bit - then we get back in to play. But in normal situations I don’t see our car being as competitive to be fighting for points.”

And Nasr admits it was frustrating for Sauber to miss out on the opportunity to score in a rain-affected British Grand Prix.

“These are the things that make our life even more difficult. I was not only sad I had a failure on the car but to see it was a race we could at least have scored a point in. We know how difficult it is already, we are already on the edge of things and only with these upgrades coming will it be able to put us closer to the midfield.

“So we have to wait. We have to wait for that for sure. Without that we cannot expect a miracle from our side. I know in Spa we’ll get the engine update from Ferrari and further ahead we have the bigger upgrade coming, so I’m looking forward to that. I feel if we can make that package work it can put us back in that fight again.”