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Kaltenborn wants Sauber seat resolved quickly

Sauber team principal Monisha Kaltenborn wants to finalise the team’s 2017 driver line-up “as soon as possible” after the loss of Felipe Nasr’s main sponsor.

Banco do Brasil announced ahead of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix that it will no longer continue to sponsor Sauber beyond the end of this season amid branch closures back in Brazil. The move has left Nasr’s future in doubt, despite him securing the two points which saw the team finish in tenth place in the constructors’ championship ahead of Manor.

Asked about the prospects for Nasr’s future following the race at the Yas Marina Circuit, Kaltenborn admitted the sponsor situation will play a part in any driver line-up decision.

“His major sponsor took a position which the publicly announced and we obviously accept that,” Kaltenborn told F1i. “It plays into the assessment of course, which we are making still. We still have not come to a decision but we want to resolve it as soon as possible.

"However, it takes more than our side to get that done, so we’re on it and I still hope that we can quite quickly resolve it.”

Pascal Wehrlein has been linked with a move to replace Nasr, with Mercedes believed to have provisionally agreed terms with Sauber if the team were to select the German as team-mate to Marcus Ericsson next season.

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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.