Sauber C20 launch: Top drivers out of our league

Sauber has admitted that he would preferred to have signed two established stars to replace Toyota-bound Mika Salo and journeyman driver Pedro Diniz, rather than former F3000 champion Nick Heidfeld and Formula Renault champ Kimi Raikkonen.

At the launch of the new C20 chassis at the Sauber factory in Hinwil, Switzerland, he spoke about why he has chosen two young drivers, despite the estimated £13 million boost of new sponsors Credit Suisse, which replaces Diniz's family backing.

"To move forward we need drivers of the calibre of Trulli, Barrichello or Frentzen," he said. "But we can never get these sorts of drivers, so that is why we have to take on very young talent and build them ourselves. It's certainly a risk to have such young drivers on the team, because you don't know how they will develop. I don't want to start making any predictions about next season, but all our sponsors want us to move up from eighth in the constructors' championship."

Sauber also griped about the FIA's point system which, he feels, mitigated against his team last year.

"If we had the CART points system we would've been sixth last year," he said. "We would have been ahead of Jordan and that would have been a fairer reflection. But the FIA will never change it because they want to compare the points to the past, to people like Fangio."

Former driver Salo has said the team needs to grow to be able to challenge the big guns in F1, but Sauber has resented the Finn's suggestion: "Mika Salo rang me after the first test with our two young drivers and asked 'why did they go so quickly? What have you done to the car?' And we just said: 'We've got new drivers, Mika'."

Sauber's head of vehicle engineering, Willy Rampf, took the opportunity to speak of his high hopes for the coming season after a promising winter test programme.

"The C20 is far beyond all our expectations so far," he said. "How fast the car really is we will only see in direct competition, but we have a very positive feeling about this year. We're fast, but it's difficult to give an estimation of where we are [in relation to other teams], but we've completed 720 kilometres of testing with no reliability problems."

Osamu Goto, the former Honda F1 project leader who is in charge of Sauber's Petronas engine project, commented: "I think we can improve on the engine by mid-season. It's also 10-kilos lighter than our engine last year, and so has a lower centre of gravity."