Sauber boss Monisha Kaltenborn gave very little away when questioned about the contractual mess in which the team appears to have found itself.
Adrian Sutil has an ongoing two-year contract, and Giedo van der Garde is also believed to have signed some time ago.
However both Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr came along with big budgets and have been signed and announced for 2015. It looks likely that Sauber could face legal challenges from one or both of the drivers who have lost out.
Indeed it’s not hard to imagine that Van der Garde’s sponsors are furious that having paid for him to do some FP1 running this year, on the basis that he would race in 2015, the Dutchman has now been dumped. Van der Garde previously took legal action against Spyker over a contractual dispute – and won.
Kaltenborn refused even to concede that there was an issue – and demonstrated in full her legal training. Here’s what she had to say in answer to a series of questions on the subject…:
“We have announced our drivers and that’s how it’s going to be.”
“As I have said we have announced our drivers, if there are any other points related to it these are internal matters which we will discuss internally.”
“I am very clearly aware of my situation and I know what I’m doing. So we’ve announced our drivers, everything else we shall sort out internally.”
“As I told you for me it’s a clear situation.”
“These are internal things which I will discuss internally.”
“I’m not admitting it’s got to be resolved, all I said is if issues are coming up, we will look at them internally.”
“We know as I said what we are doing, and we are sure about that, if others have to go and say something, fine. But we shall discuss all these things internally.”
“Our situation is very clear, that’s what I can talk about. As I said we’ve announced our drivers, that’s it.”
It remains to be seen whether or not she is right to sound so confident…
Adam Cooper's F1 Blog 
Maybe Sauber will field a 4 car team next year!
I would love to see Sauber run a 4 car team
Monspeak?
I suspect that whatever Sauber will have to pay out to terminate Sutil and Van der Garde’s contracts is a relatively small price to pay in order to get Banco de Brasil as a sponsor.
Did GVG sign a race contract or an option? Was it an ‘understanding’ that he would race, or a contract? Barrack room vs qualified lawyer?
Contract, fully supported by the court ruling
Leave her alone, she knows what she’s doing.
Based on today’s results, does she?
I was kidding, for sure, y’know. Don’t take my comments too seriously.
How can she say it’s an internal matter if it’s out in the public…..
“Our situation is very clear,..” Sure, a clear mess!
“It remains to be seen whether or not she is right to sound so confident…”
Brilliant ^^
🙂
She is history….
Kaltenborn’s willingness to consider contract fraud and criminal contempt of court as viable business strategies – necessary to “survive” in this CVC-era of Formula 1 – is reprehensible but perhaps not surprising.
After all, the leaders at the top of the sport on the commercial side [[corrupt Ecclestone/CVC) and the administrative/sporting_governance side (incompetent bully Todt at FIA – who has recently pursued a vendetta against my compatriot Dr. Gary Hartstein, trying to get him fired from his position as a clinical professor at a hospital in Belgium]] have great influence over whether or not transparency and ethical, legally-sound, business stakeholder defaults, or if stuff like the fraud Kaltenborn has presided over is more typical.