Sauber has admitted the 2025 Formula 1 market is “quite fluid” amid recent reports that the team’s top target Carlos Sainz is engaged in conversations with Williams.
The Swiss outfit revealed earlier this month that Nico Hulkenberg has signed a long-term deal to move across from Haas next term as it prepares to morph into Audi.
Audi will venture into the sport once all-new technical regulations are introduced in 2026, but the marque is taking an active role in deciding upon Sauber’s driver duo.
Sauber Team Representative Alessandro Alunni Bravi confirmed that Sainz, who will depart Ferrari at the end of 2024, is the side’s main choice to partner Hulkenberg.
However, the Spaniard has been reluctant to accept the proposal on the table from the German marque, with rumours emerging that Williams is courting his services.
Bravi has denied speculation that Sainz is under pressure to respond to Audi at the end of the month, citing that Sauber desires to have the strongest line-up possible.
“We say that we want to try to have the best pair of drivers available in the market,” Bravi said in Monaco.
“It’s not just depending on our team, it’s depending of course on the availabilities, depending on many factors.
“We have seen that the market is quite fluid and each day we see on the press new names, new combinations.
“I think the target is to have the very best drivers available for us for a long-term project like the Audi F1 team project.”
Asked whether Sauber/Audi had a deadline to take a decision, Bravi replied: “Not a deadline. We have a target that I think we need to try to find the very best option.”
Sauber has endured a challenging beginning to the campaign with zero points from the opening seven races, leaving it residing bottom in the Constructors’ standings.
Bravi has accepted that the Hinwil-based squad is lagging behind the competition with its revamped C44 car, despite bringing a revised floor to last weekend’s round.
“I think it was a lack of performance, simply,” Bravi conceded regarding Sauber’s uncompetitive showing at Imola. “We started the weekend in FP1 on the back foot.
“We were not able to recover in time for the qualifying session.
“We have seen that the race pace was much better, but of course we need to recover performance, to accelerate the upgrades.
“We introduced a new floor in Imola that gave us some improvement, but not sufficient to close the gap, especially to Racing Bulls and also to the SF1 team.
“Here we have a new concept, a new generation of rear wings that should help us to find additional performance.
“But of course the field is very tight and we need to push more on the performance side, so there is no other reason than lack of performance.”
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