Kaltenborn: No concern over current Honda performance

Monisha Kaltenborn insists Sauber has no concerns over Honda's current power unit performance after announcing a supply deal from 2018 onward.

Sauber will become only the second team to run a Honda power unit since its return to F1 in 2015, with McLaren having had an exclusive deal since that time. While progress was made last season, this year has seen the Japanese manufacturer deliver an unreliable and uncompetitive power unit, but Kaltenborn says she had no doubts as a result of the problems despite talks having started last year.

"Talks have been going on for quite a while," Kaltenborn (pictured, Sam Bloxham/LAT photo) told RACER. "No [there were no doubts seeing this year's problems]. We had no insight over what to expect and if to be disappointed or not, but like I've always said we've been evaluated all our options and we really did that."

Explaining why Sauber had opted for Honda having had brief talks with Mercedes, Kaltenborn highlighted potential to work together outside of F1 as a key factor.

"It was not an easy decision to start with because after all we are talking about leaving a 17-year-old partnership. So one thing is the opportunities and the other thing is a certain emotional side, you don't take these decisions so easily.

"We see in the package with Honda a lot of technological opportunities for us. We had cooperations with manufacturers before where we could also bring in certain things because we have certain know-hows and certain technologies within the Sauber group and maybe we can explore many different ways here.

"We'll discuss them now. We've just announced it and if you give us a bit of time to really discuss it, then it will come out."

Kaltenborn highlights Sauber's history as a manufacturer team for BMW (pictured in 2007, Alastair Staley/LAT photo) as giving the team potential to work closely with an engine supplier.

"Well, it's changed a lot in the years. I remember when engine development was allowed in a different way to how it is now, we were also doing it because we had a division at that time to do certain development then. Not that we're going to do this now, I want to be very clear about that! But we used to and then we ventured out into other areas, so we'll see now what we can do. We have know-how and technologies that we can apply into other series in motorsport and outside of motorsport with different clients we have. So maybe we see some opportunities there."