Sauber now more attractive for drivers - Kaltenborn

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Monisha Kaltenborn believes Sauber is now more attractive for drivers looking for a race seat in 2017 following its recent takeover.

Sauber was taken over by Longbow Finance in July, bringing to an end years of financial uncertainty surrounding the team. Its driver line-up for the past two seasons has been Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr, but both are understood to be out of contract at the end of the season.

Asked if Sauber would have to wait for teams further up the grid to make decisions on drivers before it could finalise its line-up for 2017, Kaltenborn told F1i: “I think we have our options, we are looking at that and I guess now that there’s stability there we are not that unattractive.”

Asked what her plan is for Sauber's line-up at this stage, Kaltenborn replied: “To have two drivers!

“We’ll see. We’re in the process of looking at it and we’ll see when we can announce.”

Nasr recently said he wants Sauber to prove to him it is a team with potential to move forward and allow him to fight further up the grid.

“I need to see what I want before [I decide]," Nasr said. "If I want to stay, if I can clearly see that the team have something to believe in.

"I do have faith in the team and I believe even from last year. I had a really good start to the season - my first season in Formula One - and I know the difficult times they had but it’s all related to one thing which is the development due to the financial situation we had.

"We struggled but as I said from my side I still have faith here, if it can gather things together it can be a place that I can perform as well."

Ericsson, by contrast, is confident he can retain his seat if he reproduces some of the form he showed early in the season.

"I think if I can perform on the same level as I have done in the first half of the year I should have a good chance," Ericsson said. "Maybe not like the last few weekends! If we ignore those two weekends, the way I’ve been performing before that I think was really good and I just need to keep doing that."

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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.