Vasseur predicts 'huge step' for Sauber in 2018

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Sauber team boss Frederic Vasseur says its new title sponsorship deal with Alfa Romeo has already resulted in a big step forward for the Swiss squad.

Vasseur has already revealed that he cancelled the team's deal to switch to Honda within hours of taking over from Monisha Kaltenborn as principal.

That opened the door to talks with Alfa Romeo. In turn, that led to a new engine deal with Ferrari.

"To have a title sponsor for the team is a good move, but also a huge step," he told RACER magazine.

"For sure it was an exciting time as well as a tricky one," he explained. "We changed from Honda to the Ferrari engine and the Alfa Romeo deal quite late. It was the end of July.

"We delayed the design a little bit, but it was on purpose," he insisted. "When we decided come back to the Ferrari engine the design of the car with the Honda engine was already started.

Vasseur: Weak engine an excuse for aero deficit in 2017

"That meant a small delay when we had to redesign the back of the car to change the approach a little bit. But that's life.

"It's much better to have this problem than to have to deal with the guys in the factory having nothing to do!

"For the company and the marketing and communications team it was also tricky," he pointed out. "It's not a big deal ... It's more of a rush for the team.

"But now we have a long-term deal. It's not a problem if for a couple of weeks at the beginning it is an issue."

He added that the new title sponsorship deal meant the team finally had the money to start to grow again.

"We have to reinforce every single department and recruit a lot," he said. "We have to be focused on the next years, and not on the last 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.