Sauber’s financial problems continue

Sauber’s hopes of ending their financial worries appear to have failed to materialise.

Like a few teams on the Formula One grid at the moment, Sauber are said to be struggling financially.

In similar reports to those at Lotus, where reports [although denied by the Lotus owners] have surfaced that Kimi Raikkonen and factory staff had not been paid, at Sauber there has also been speculation that drivers Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Gutierrez are also owed wages, whilst various team suppliers were also owed money.

Then last month, ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix, reports emerged that the team had been saved thanks to a deal with three Russian companies.

The Russian based Investment Co-operation International Fund, the State Fund of Development of North-West Russian Federation and the National Institute of Aviation Technologies were all reported to have signed deals with the team.

As well as being a financial deal the Sauber F1 team were also set to ‘benefit from the advanced know-how of the front-end Russian scientists and engineers’ with the objective of the partnership ‘to open up new perspectives and revenue streams by commercialising jointly developed technologies’ according to the Sauber statement released at the time.

However the deal appears to be on the rocks, Germany’s Bild has reported that the National Institute of Aviation Technologies board has voted against the deal.

Whilst all three companies who have strong ties to the Russian government have also failed to received consent from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

‘We’ve gone through tough times before and we know we can survive. The question is not whether you want to survive, it’s whether you want to, at some point in time, make the step ahead,’ Sauber Team Principal Monisha Kaltenborn told Sky Sports when asked if the team had received any payments following the announcement of the deals with the Russian trio of companies.

‘We knew that if this deal came through, we’d have the basis in the long term to make our way up again – and that’s what’s going to happen now.

‘We know what we’re talking about and we have good reasons to believe in it.’