Sauber confident 2017 hopes not hurt by lack of development

The Swiss outfit had nearly no updates for most of the season as it struggled financially, before it secured new owners in Longbow Finance back in July.

Since then, Sauber has introduced upgrades to its car, but inevitably the development of next year's design has been compromised.

But with the squad's finances now sorted, Kaltenborn insists her team will not be hurt by the lack of progress made with the 2017 car.

"Some things will take a while. You can't be quicker, that's the way things move," Kaltenborn said. "But I think in terms of development we could do a lot of things when it comes to looking at next year's car.

"We couldn't implement many things on this year's car, but other capabilities are very much there. So we could do that.

"There can be a bit of an effect on that, I'm not saying everything was just going on normally, but it shouldn't give us any reason why we can't make as step ahead next year.

"Ideally you want to test the parts a bit more, but I think we should be able to overcome and make up for that."

Sauber is currently last in the constructors' championship, having failed to score a point so far, with direct rival Manor on one point in 10th position.

Kaltenborn admitted the importance of beating Manor to 10th in the standings is huge in terms of money prize.

"The importance is many millions, it's all I can tell you," she said.

"Of course it [finishing 11th] would have an impact, but that's something we really don't want to look at, because we think we can still manage it and that's what we are focused on rather than looking at what to do if we don't manage it."

Additional reporting by Jonathan Noble