Vasseur: How Sauber can compete this season

Sauber team principal Fred Vasseur knows that the team "was in a tough situation" but believes that Sauber can do better this season.

For the last two F1 seasons, Sauber have lagged behind the entire field, except from the now defunct Manor team in 2016.

Investment had been a serious problem for the Swiss team, but since the backing of Longbow Finance, Sauber have been on a long road to recovery and to rejoining the midfield.

Vasseur said: "I think we did globally a good job on the last part of the season because we were able to catch up.

"Now for the future for sure we will have to improve in every single area."

Sauber were comfortably the slowest car last season, scoring only 5 points, all scored by Pascal Wehrlein.

Wehrlein was not retained for 2018, but Sauber have signed talented youngster and last year's F2 champion Charles Leclerc to partner the more experienced Marcus Ericsson.

Vasseur continued, saying: "I think the first step for us will be to catch up the field.

"We will improve much faster as soon as we (get onto) the pace, first because we get an extra motivation and also because with the comparison you will improve faster.

"If you have a look at other projects, Red Bull 10 years ago, Mercedes seven years ago, it took time for them to be able to fight for championships and win."