Sauber Technical Director James Key believes the team should be encouraged by the “immensely tight grid” in Formula 1 in 2023 showing that progress is possible this year.
Having capitalised on an overhaul to the regulations to rise to sixth in 2022, Sauber dropped to ninth place in the standings in its final year running with the Alfa Romeo name.
The Swiss outfit, which will be known as ‘Stake F1 Team’ across the next two years, is building towards the next rules reset in 2026 when it will transition into a works Audi entry.
However, the Sauber Group has reiterated that it is not resting on its laurels ahead of the German marque’s arrival and is pressing ahead with a revised car concept for 2024.
But with the midfield separated by only minor margins last season, Key is confident that even a series of incremental gains could be enough to elevate Sauber further up the grid.
“It’s an immensely tight grid,” Key told Autosport.
“Unless you really track the numbers it’s not obvious from outside, because the pecking order is still similar. But if you look at the lap times, 1.5% overall, it means we’re all at 98.5% of the quickest car. And sometimes it’s less than that.
“I won’t bang on about this, but if you look at an overlay between let’s say, us and Mercedes or Red Bull, it’s just a few corners, a little bit of braking or something.
“It’s not like this massive difference you used to see with a car that was in sort of P8/P9 position, compared to a car which is in P1/P2. The difference was very stark just a few years ago, now it’s incredibly close.
“So that suggests if we get everything right, both at the track and at the factory in our decisions on development, decisions on the car, then there’s plenty more opportunity there.
“Everyone’s in the same boat. But there’s no reason to believe we are stuck in this position at all, I believe we can definitely move further forward.
“And if you look at that band of, I guess it’s P5/6 at the moment really down to P10, it’s immensely close. In that respect there’s every reason to be optimistic that we can go further forward.”
Key, who was axed by McLaren early last year, admits the Hinwil-based squad still has areas for improvement, but he has been impressed by the fundamentals in place.
“I think all the basics are definitely there, which is why I think there’s potential to do better immediately,” he added. “But some of the big stuff, we’re definitely missing a bit too.
“And I think the future capex [increase] will fill those gaps with more state of the art and key facilities, investment in existing facilities that we’ve got, which are already good as a baseline – the wind tunnel is legendary at Sauber.
“But there’s work to do in terms of the technology, for example. I think all of those things will be direct performance gains, compared to where we are now.
“A lot of is catching up, to be honest with you. So to be within this 1.5% knowing there’s an awful lot of stuff to do is pretty good I think, a good indicator.
“Beyond that, we’ve got to look at other areas. We have been pushing the production side even harder to get those few tenths further down, and we need some more office space. There’s plenty of big projects to consider as well.”
