Nasr: Sauber can target Renault this season

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Felipe Nasr says Sauber should be targeting Renault in the constructors’ championship this season after securing new ownership which will allow car development.

Sauber faced an uncertain start to the season and has been unable to bring upgrades to its car while it struggled financially. New ownership was confirmed in July, with Longbow Finance taking over the team, and Nasr told F1i the team should immediately work to deliver upgrades which will allow it to attempt to leapfrog both Manor and Renault.

“Performance, that's all we want,” Nasr said. “We want to bring the new bits to the car. We expect that the next few races we can start adding performance to the car, making the car quicker and getting more competitive where we should be. Unlocking the performance of the car which was plain already from the beginning of the season but we couldn’t do it.

“For sure for next year we can have more time, more investment and more things that can be done, but I’m not ruling out this year yet. We can still fight for points, we have to aim for those points, especially against Manor. Also Renault is not too far away, they only scored six points. Of course this is a game, everybody is doing something every day trying to move forwards.

“As soon as we start introducing these bits I’m expecting the car to go quicker and fight for higher positions and why not some points? Still so many races and a lot can happen.”

And Nasr says it feels like Sauber has had many departments on hold while it waited for confirmation of the fresh investment.

“It’s a big relief for everyone. It’s great news, I’m happy for the team, I’m happy they could find a solution in the end. It gives everyone a fresh boost and a new perspective to look forward to a new chapter.

"We’ve been very tight on things we could do, very limited on things we could do with the car on the development side. Internally in the team we were not using all we could as a team basically, all the departments, all the design areas, there were a lot of things that were waiting for the green light to be pressed but we couldn’t do it.”

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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.