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Sauber clash 'will not happen again' - Kaltenborn

Monisha Kaltenborn insists the incident between the two Sauber drivers in the Monaco Grand Prix "will not happen again".

Felipe Nasr was asked to move over and let Marcus Ericsson through as the Swede was deemed to be faster at that stage of the race, with Sauber telling Nasr the call would be reversed if Ericsson made no further progress. The Brazilian driver declined to do so and eventually Ericsson tried to pass at Rascasse, with the pair colliding and both retiring.

Team principal Kaltenborn says the matter will be swiftly dealt with inside the team to ensure there is no repeat in future.

“It didn’t get out of hand, you could follow it all," Kaltenborn said. "We had our reasons to make that call which we will go through again internally. I really at this stage would not like to make it public, that’s not right to do, we have to sort this out behind closed doors.

"It led to the call which you all heard, the call was then made again. Obviously it was not adhered to as one could also see and after a while it led to the incident involving both cars and they’ve been taken out.

“For me that is the bottom line, that simply should not happen.”

Asked if the situation was unacceptable, Kaltenborn replied: “Absolutely.

"We are not going to make any analysis of the situation in public because we have enough to do internally on this but this will not happen again.”

And Kaltenborn explained the call to swap positions was made with a wider view of the race in mind, admitting the team's failure to score in 2014 - when Jules Bianchi took two points which saw Marussia finish above Sauber in the constructors' championship - was a clear example of why it was required.

“You have to look at the overall strategy. Use as an example what happened in 2014 with us here. First we were going towards the points - we were nowhere close to the points - and then so many people dropped out that suddenly we found ourselves that we could get a point if not two if I remember, and then the drivers made these mistakes and it was gone. But the worst part of that was that actually a direct competitor at that time went and score points and such a point can be very expensive at the end of the season.

“We had to make sure that overall we are in the right position that if something happens … you have to have a very different picture in mind and not can you immediately score or not score.”

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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.