Italian GP: Sauber admits Sergio Perez would not have beaten Lewis Hamilton

Perez executed a brilliant alternative strategy to the leaders to charge through to second from 12th place on the grid - even overtaking Ferrari duo Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso on the way.

But although he came close to Hamilton in the closing stages, Sauber CEO Monisha Kaltenborn says her outfit is not wasting any time wondering if even more would have been possible.

"I think we were too far away from that, and that is speculation that you don't want to get into," she told AUTOSPORT when asked whether Perez had the possibility to win. "With the laps we had remaining we were too far away.

"Even if you start thinking: what if we had more laps? Well, if you have more laps you also have more laps where things can go wrong, so we should not forget that."

Kaltenborn said it had been a tough call to opt to start the race on the hard tyres; but the team quickly realised that its strategy was correct once Perez hit the right pitstop window.

"It was very tight," she said. "The engineers had actually calculated the window that you have to look at, and that is what you have to decide: do we go for a one-stop or a two-stopper? And it was a very tricky decision."