He told to Autosport:

"We will submit an application for a chassis name change, but the timing has yet to be decided, it will happen some time this season.

We have still a white car unfortunately, because it is impossible to find sponsors during January and February - especially big sponsors. Today we are looking for sponsors for the 2011 season. I hope we will find some sponsors for this season. If we find a title sponsor for 2011 in the middle of the year then maybe we can have them for this season too"

Actually the team and its drivers do have quite a lot sponsors, but most of them only provide minor support. Gone are Intel, T-Systems and Petronas. The latest addition to the line up was El Corte Ingles, Spain's leading department store chain, in the form of personal sponsor of De la Rosa; they are already appearing in the helmet and overalls of Pedro.

However it seems rumours during the pre-season did not pay off, as it seems quite clear now that the Nespresso talk is not going to materialize. Not surprising though, as our sources were not aware that this deal would go ahead...something different is the Nestle brand, though.

From what we know both the team and the drivers' managements are "fighting" hard for finiding the needed sponsors. However the crisis has striked Spain in a very strong way, and despite the search, neither the team or the Spanish driver has managed to attract enough interest from a company, El Corte Ingles aside.

At this point is important to note that contrary to reports during the pre-season, nor Kobayashi nor De la Rosa are pay drivers. In the case of the Japanese driver we already warned that neither Panasonic nor KDDI were to join the Swiss squad. In fact so far of Japanese companies, only D-Scalp, a rather small shampoo brand, has signed -to be seen in the endplates of the rear wing and Kobayashi's overalls.

In De la Rosa's case he hasn't brought any sponsor to the team yet, and the Universia reports were wide off the mark, as in the end only Santander -Universia's matrix company- is contributing, but not in the form of sponsorship of either the driver or the team. Instead Santader is economically supporting PDLR, but as a complement to its salary, and is based on performance bonuses; average figure is estimated around 1€m.

Adding to this, the Hinwil-based squad is giving a salary to both teams, albeit small due to the obvious current financial situation. In the Spaniard's case it is believed to be around the 300.000€ figure, and Koyashi's should be close to that figure too, probably a bit smaller.

While none of them were requested to bring sponsors beforehand, they have been encouraged to actively search them in their national markets, and we can only hope, for the best of the team, that it ultimately pays off.

The most likely outcome is that not too late in the season, once financial situation of the entreprises and the countries improve, they will find sponsors for 2011, which will gladly accept to appear on the car during this season too, for a modical extra sum.

Surely the Bahrain result won't help attracting sponsors, but we should say that there's no need to panic. Sauber were not "showboating" nor under weight during the weight to impress the people out there. The bad performance of the team in its season debut was more down to particular characteristics of the Bahrain circuit, especially the new section.

The very bumpy tarmac and the downforce compromise are the reasons to blame; the Saubers have been usually stiff in suspension terms, which makes them deal worse with bumps, as it is the case of Mclaren too. Furthermore the team discovered in the Barcelona tests, according to Pedro de la Rosa, that the C29 is not so aerodynamically efficient, which affects badly when compromises in downforce level have to be done; that's what happened when balancing the set up between the slow sector 2 and the other ones. Australia will be certainly much better suited to the car.

We will keep you updated on the situation as soon as we learn something relevant we are allowed to tell you.

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