Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsSauber

Smith pushing aggressive Sauber approach - Nasr

Felipe Nasr says new technical director Mark Smith is the driving force behind Sauber's aggressive approach for 2016.

Smith joined Sauber in July of last year as the team added a technical director following three years without one since James Key's departure. With experience from Jordan, Red Bull, Force India and Caterham, Smith was brought in to be a figurehead for the technical team at Sauber.

Asked if Smith is one of the people pushing to be more aggressive with Sauber's 2016 car design, Nasr replied: "Yes, he was the guy - I think straight away, he wanted to apply this approach.

"We drivers and as a team, we all gave the feedback where the car had to be improved and I think he has given a lot of directions where to follow with the car development.

"This concept is something, I would say if you look at the other cars, a lot of people have different concepts, but if we kept developing the one we have now, it is little steps that we can do, that is why we are taking this different approach for 2016."

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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.