Sauber sets sights on fifth position in the constructors' championship

The Swiss team strengthened its grip on sixth place in the standings by scoring 20 points courtesy of Kamui Kobayashi and Sergio Perez finishing fourth and sixth at Hockenheim, but Kaltenborn believes that there is the potential to do even better.

Sauber now has 80 points, 36 more than it scored on the way to seventh place last year. It trails Mercedes by only 25 points.

"Our target is to improve significantly," Kaltenborn told AUTOSPORT. "If it's just one position at the end of the season compared to last year, I would not call that significant. We can really go further up.

"But it's very early to make a call right now. We have half-a-season to go and we saw last season how much things chance. It looked like a safe sixth position but it didn't end up like that."

Kaltenborn backed the team's drivers to get the best out of the machinery in the second half of the season.

Both Perez and Kobayashi have endured weekends where they haven't made the most of the pace of the car, but Hockenheim showed that both are capable of scoring big points.

"It's a bit responsibility for them because no matter what car we provide, they have to bring the result home," she said.

"They are inexperienced drivers in a way because to be in your second or third season in F1 is nothing compared to others in their 10th season.

"We have to be careful not to put too much load on them because they have to have their time to learn as well. But they are both doing a good job."

Kaltenborn added that while the Hockenheim performance was encouraging, the team still needs to raise its game across the board in qualifying.

Neither driver reached Q3 and both have regularly had to climb the order from disappointing grid slots this year.

"This kind of result shows what we are capable of," said Kaltenborn. "But we could do far more if we were starting further up and not messing up qualifying. This is the level that we have to target, and even higher because we know that the car can do more.

"Qualifying is still one of our weaknesses which we really should focus on. Other mistakes can happen, but if you are better in qualifying, you are in a very different position going into the race. It has to be our target in the second half of the year to improve in this area."