Kaltenborn will not quit over Sauber contract fiasco

Monisha Kaltenborn says she is not considering quitting her position as Sauber F1 team principal despite being embroiled in a bitter legal dispute that has left her with three race drivers contracted to two race seats.

Just days before the start of the Australian Grand Prix, former reserve driver Giedo van der Garde won a court ruling that alleged Sauber had reneged on a contract to give him a race drive for 2015 after it proceeded to sign Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr.

With van der Garde going on to have the ruling upheld in the Court of Appeal too, Sauber is now legally obliged to offer him a race drive in Melbourne, though it remains contracted to Ericsson and Nasr too.

As it stands, court proceedings and a resolution to the feud has been delayed to Saturday at the earliest, with indications suggesting it could drag on beyond race day. Furthermore, though van der Garde was present in the morning to have a seat fitting and Sauber opted not to venture out in FP1, it was Ericsson and Nasr that contested FP2.

Making her first comments about the debacle in the team principal's press conference, though Kaltenborn repeatedly insisted she cannot talk about the court proceedings, she rejected suggestions that she should step down as team principal.

"I don't see it having any effect," she replied when asked if she felt she was competent enough to run the team, before adding that she has 'not considered' resigning.

She was also steadfast over the decision to nullify van der Garde's contract and sign Ericsson and Nasr, saying she had a 'clear view' of what was happening, even if she admits it is affecting the morale in the Sauber team.

"We have a very clear view of what we did. We took action after thinking about it for a while. For us that was very clear, but the outcome is different, and that's all I can say to you."

"It's definitely had a very negative impact on the team because the situation was, for a while, unclear. We now have certain actions taken against the team, and we are acting accordingly. There's nothing much more really I can say to that."