Kaltenborn defends Sauber's move to Honda Formula 1 engines in 2018

The Swiss outfit will end a long-term Ferrari partnership to become a Honda powered outfit next year alongside McLaren.

But although some have questioned why Sauber would want to move to Honda, which is behind in terms of reliability and power, Kaltenborn says the decision is based on the potential gains of the engine.

When asked by Autosport to respond to criticisms of the deal, Kaltenborn said: "That is very momentary, how you are summarising it. That is as of now. Nobody knows what is going to be the future.

"We are absolutely confident that Honda will make improvements and sort out their issues. We are convinced that it is going to happen.

"We were in a similar situation in 2014 where there was big difference in the competitiveness of the engine, but that was no reason for us to start questioning or criticising because we knew Ferrari was doing everything they could, and they did.

"Nobody knows what is going to be in six months and we just feel that from the overall opportunities that we have there, it strengthens or fits more into the way we want to go."

Sauber has hinted at the prospect of technological partnerships with Honda outside of the F1 sphere, and has not ruled out the idea of running Honda young drivers in the future.

Honda currently has two drivers competing in F1 support series, with Nobuharu Matsushita in Formula 2 and Nirei Fukuzumi in GP3.

"In these kind of partnerships as we have also done in the past, you discuss drivers with your partner and you take advice of there's on board," said Kaltenborn.

"At the end of the day it is the team's responsibility, so this is how it will also be there. We have just started so it is too early to say there."

Kaltenborn said it was emotionally difficult for Sauber to decide to bring an end to its partnership with Ferrari - having been with the Italian manufacturer in two long spells from 1997 (above) to 2005, badged as Petronas engines, and again since 2010.

This season Sauber has used year-old Ferrari engines.

"It is not an easy step," she added. "If you look at all what we have gone through, and particularly with people who were there also for long at Ferrari before, it does have its emotional side to it as well.

"It might sound easy to say we are ending it, but Ferrari has been very helpful towards us, particularly since the team was bought back from BMW [at the end of 2009] because they were very difficult times.

"Before that, we had a lot of co-operation with Ferrari when we still had Petronas with our partner.

"There was a lot of work done in terms of development of fuel and lubricants, so it was a very intensive partnership. So not an easy step."