A cooling update on Sauber's C36 will enable its drivers to run in qualifying with the full might of its old-spec Ferrari engine for the first time this season.
The Swiss outfit had been forced to tune down its already outdated power unit because of persistent cooling issues.
The team's most recent upgrade package has cured the problem and delivered hope of improvement, according to Marcus Ericsson.
"The big thing is the cooling system," Ericsson told Motorsport.com.
"You don't feel [the difference] but the engine guys could see the engine was running in much healthier temperatures.
"[It was] maybe not so much today but for qualifying and the race, we can turn up the engine a lot more.
"Hopefully we can extract more performance from that, which is something which has been hurting us quite a lot this season.
"The engine has been running quite high and we have to go down on engine settings. We already have the old power unit so you don't want to turn the unit down.
"The way I understand, we can turn it up maximum tomorrow for qualifying, something which we haven't been able to do this year."
Despite Sauber's upgrade and the extra boost of power, Ericsson believes it could still be challenging to move up the grid on Saturday afternoon.
"I definitely felt the car, straight away in FP1, was a step forward. There was a bit more grip in general, compared to what I'm used to. The update was working.
"If we can tune the car better to get the tyres better over a whole lap, we should be able to mix it up with guys ahead of us.
"Will it be enough for Q2? I don't know. It might not be possible. I was feeling quite confident in the car today so we could maybe do it."
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