Kaltenborn aiming for long-term sustainability

Sauber team principal Monisha Kaltenborn says that she's making progress seeking sustainable, long-term solutions to the team's current business problems that have left the Swiss outfit struggling to keep up with their rivals on track.

"We are working on that since a while now and we also know that we need that," she told reporters after free practice at Monaco on Thursday.

"If you look at today’s Formula One environment to be strong as an independent team you need to have a strong partners. So we have always been open to that and now we are pursuing our chances and we hope to resolve that soon.

"We have certain challenges and we are working very hard to overcome the situation and I’m confident that we’ll resolve it shortly."

Kaltenborn admitted that the current situation was inevitably impacting on how much development the team could continue to carry out on the 2016 car while also working on next year's package at the same time.

"Work has been ongoing on it, so you’re working in parallel basically on both cars. We’ll all be very soon in the window where you then decide you totally switch over to the new one."

Kaltenborn added that she felt the problems being faced by Sauber in 2016 showed just how much the sport had changed and developed over the last decade - and not necessarily for the better.

"I think Formula One has changed a lot, if you look at the times when Peter Sauber was team principal," she said. "It was a very different sport and a very different kind of business with a very different financial set-up and sporting set-up, so I don’t think you can really compare the times

"Challenges for private teams like ours have become bigger, year-by-year, particularly also due to the rule changes which have made things in the last few years far more expensive, if you look at the power train itself but also with regard to the distribution of income.

"There was a time when teams were not getting 50 percent but even less but yet the economic environment was much better, where you could get far more sponsors, so I don’t think it’s really that easy to compare the times, it doesn’t just have to do with people or the situation within the team, but the overall surroundings we were in."

Sauber has been one of the parties to formally complain to the EU about how the FIA and promoters FOM have been running the sport, and Kaltenborn said that she remains hopeful of a positive outcome from the action.

"I’ve got nothing more to add to it but that doesn’t mean there’s been no progress. As you know, there has been a certain restructuring which is commonly known within the EU regarding sport cases so it’s a very good move, generally, for sport and these kind of complaints and Force India, we are absolutely confident that it’s going to be looked at and is being looked at very seriously."

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