Sauber F1 team principal Monisha Kaltenborn has said that she is confident that engine providers Ferrari will be able to deliver a big boost in performance for the 2016 season.
Ferrari initially struggled with the change from V8 to V6 engines and with the additional components of the overall powerplant specifications, with the teams' 2014 designs proving a particular disappointment.
But Ferrari made significant progress in 2015 and is poised to continue with the improvement again this season - all of which is good news for Sauber who rely on Ferrari's upgrades filtering down to them as a customer team for their own success.
"I am confident, they have already shown in 2015 the step they took," Kaltenborn told Motorsport.com this week. "I think they have done a very good job, and I have every reasons to have no doubts - or rather, to have the belief that they are going to take the next step."
That said, Kaltenborn is a realist and is aware that the gap between Mercedes and the rest of the Formula One field is currently too vast to be easily made up in a single season.
"You can't expect miracles, the gap is so big that you have to take it step-by-step," she agreed. "You also have to look at the reliability.
"If Ferrari were to make that kind of step where they are couple of seconds away from the rest, then you could compare it to that, but that kind of advantage we are not going to have."
But while full parity with Mercedes may be a long way off, Kaltenborn believes that the other teams are slowly but surely making in-roads into the world championship team's advantage.
"The other teams were so far back, and that's already closer," she insisted. "The differences are no longer so big."
Unfortunately for Sauber, it seems that the team is already on the back foot heading into 2016 amid rumours that the new C35 would miss the first pre-season test in Barcelona in February.
Unlike other Formula One teams, Sauber has opted to stick to its original development timetable despite changes to the 2016 calendar which moves the Australian Grand Prix forward to March 20, with a similar move for the test.
Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson will therefore be running a modified version of the 2015-specification C34 chassis across the opening four days, though the car will sport its new colour scheme.
Most of the other teams are expected to roll out their new cars at the first test, with Haas and McLaren already slated for a February 21 launch.
Sauber still expect the C35 to be ready for the second test, which will also be held at the Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona, on March 1-4.
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