Sauber F1 team boss Monisha Kaltenborn admits they're up against it in 2017 as a result of running year-old Ferrari engines.
But Kaltenborn said that they were working hard to overome the deficit in other ways. Even though Sauber had been the slowest car in Melbourne, she felt that they still had a good chance to score points in 2017.
“I think points are still possible,” Kaltenborn told Motorsport.com this week.
"We know this engine, we know the surrounding it has," she said. "The team will have to focus on our strengths, which is on the chassis side.
"We will try our best to compensate for that loss," she added. "At some races it will be less, but we knew that.
"There are other races coming up where we definitely have our chance."
With a number of drivers retiring in Melbourne with reliability problems, Kaltenborn had been hoping for some opportunistic success in the season opener. But that was not to be.
Last year Sauber's first points came in the penultimate race of the season in Brazil. Their success put them ahead of Manor in the constructors championship and sealed the smaller team's fate.
"We have definitely closed the gap to certain teams that are ahead of us," she said. "But we still need to work and make sure we make that gap smaller.
Antonio Giovinazzi, a late replacement for the unwell Pascal Wehrlein, did finish but was in 12th place outside the points. However, Marcus Ericsson retired on lap 21 having suffered a first lap collision with Haas' Kevin Magnussen.
"Our pace is there and we just need to make sure these sort of accidents don’t happen and that qualifying is a bit better," summarised Kaltenborn.
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