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Sauber Will Be 'Lucky' to Score Points in 2018

10:49, 21 Mar 2018

byNicolás Quarles van Ufford

Sauber team boss Fred Vasseur has admitted that Sauber will be lucky to score points in the 2018 season.

Vasseur said this in response to one of his drivers, rookie Charles Leclerc, who said a few days ago that his goal this year is to "score points in one or two races."

Sauber finished dead-last last season, scoring just five points across twenty races (all five points were scored by Pascal Wehrlein), but has strong Ferrari backing this season and a new title sponsor in Alfa Romeo.

"When you're at our level," Vasseur said, "we need other teams to have problems to be able to score any points."

"Charles [Leclerc] knows that, and I think he has the intelligence to be very opportunistic when the moment comes."

On his teams' struggle for relevance, Vasseur compared his team to the ones that are at the top now.

"We know that Mercedes took five years to be champion, and Red Bull took seven years. That's just the way it is, even for big companies like them."

"We know we won't be contending tomorrow morning, but we have to be attacking and going forward, even yesterday morning."

In conclusion, the team boss of the Swiss outfit expressed his gratitude with the upgrade in the power unit they've had this year.

"The new engine gives us a small leap in performance, but more than anything I think Sauber have taken a huge step forward in identity."

"We have a ton of new sponsors, and when we're recruiting, we can see that people really believe in our project; we have never received so many CV's from engineers who want to join our team!"