No sponsor pressure over Sauber drivers - Kaltenborn

40

Sauber team principal Monisha Kaltenborn says sponsor considerations do not play a part in team orders following the Monaco Grand Prix collision.

Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson both bring substantial sponsorship to Sauber, which has been struggling financially for a number of seasons. The pair have been closely matched on track and Nasr was told to move over for Ericsson during the Monaco Grand Prix but declined to do so, with the pair eventually colliding.

With sponsors aligned to each driver, when asked by F1i if it makes such a situation more challenging to manage Kaltenborn insists the sponsors back the team to deal with the drivers fairly.

“I think it’s not that difficult from that perspective because they are team sponsors and they also understand that the team has to do it," Kaltenborn said. "Obviously they might have preferences but at the end of the day they sponsor the team and they have enough trust and faith in the team that you treat your drivers the same way.

“Once their driver can be in the same situation on the right side or the wrong side, so I don’t think that’s an issue over there so much.”

And Kaltenborn says she wants the drivers to stay competitive with each other but feels the need to reiterate the team must come first.

“I don’t know if it’s been building up because we have a good atmosphere in the team from that perspective. We know from the past how much competition there can be between the drivers and some drivers say their biggest and toughest competitor is actually they team-mate and not the drivers outside.

“A certain competition is healthy but what matters at the end of the day is we are here as a team sport and the team’s position.”

Monaco Grand Prix - Quotes of the week

Driver ratings - Monaco Grand Prix

Technical feature: What will the 2017 F1 cars look like?

Daniil Kvyat exclusive: Time to think about life after Red Bull

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

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.