Sauber won't be turned into Ferrari B team, insists Vasseur

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New Sauber principal Frederic Vasseur has insisted that there are no plans to make the team into a junior Ferrari squad.

Sauber will use Ferrari's fully up-to-date 2018 engine next year, and have a closer working relationship with the Scuderia. However, that doesn't mean they will become a formal B team.

"It is good that we will be supported by one of the top teams, and not only technically," Vasseur commented on Thursday at Spa.

The Italian manufacturer already has a technical partnership with the Haas F1 team. However, Vasseur said there was no plan for Sauber to enter into a similar partnership.

"Honestly no. Haas has its own philosophy and we have ours," he insisted.

"At Sauber we already have very good infrastructure," he pointed out. "Perhaps Haas does not. We have one of the best wind tunnels in Formula 1, for example.

"We want to develop our own project with Ferrari, with the engine and gearbox at the heart," he continued. "But we can expand the number of parts we receive from Maranello.

Haas untroubled by new Sauber-Ferrari partnership

"Perhaps at some point we will find a better option to collaborate. But we will not become a B team or customer team."

Even so, there has been speculation that Sauber could be tasked to run one or more of Ferrari's promising junior drivers.

Both Antonio Giovinazzi and Charles Leclerc have been tipped for a race seat at Sauber next season as a side result of the engine tie-up. The current line-up consists of Marcus Ericsson and Mercedes protege Pascal Wehrlein.

But Vasseur said there was no decision yet about who will be driving for the team in 2018.

"I knew you would ask me about the drivers," Vasseur said. "We will only discuss the situation and make a decision in the next few weeks."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.