Esteban Gutierrez is not happy with former Sauber team principal Monisha Kaltenborn and says there was a “discrepancy” with what the team needed
Former Formula 1 driver Esteban Gutierrez has criticized the way his former team boss at Sauber, Monisha Kaltenborn, worked and held her partly responsible for the poor performance the team showed almost a decade ago
Gutierrez made his Formula 1 debut for Sauber alongside Nico Hülkenberg in 2013, but only managed to finish in the points in one race. Despite this, the team kept him on, but neither he nor his team-mate Adrian Sutil scored a single point in 2014.
Things did not go well for the team in the following years either: only in 2022 did they finish higher than eighth in the overall standings. However, the Swiss team experienced its greatest period of weakness between 2014 and 2017, when the team finished tenth three times in four years.
The team principal at the time was the Austrian Monisha Kaltenborn, a law graduate who had taken over from team founder Peter Sauber. But for Gutierrez, Kaltenborn’s methods were not right because she was unable to manage the team at a good level.
“There was a big discrepancy between what Monisha was doing and what the team needed,” Gutierrez told formula1.com – well aware of the financial problems the team had at the time.
Gutierrez was also aware of this: “I have a business background and I love dealing with the workings of an organization. And it was frustrating for me to see some of the aspects that were missing from the team’s work,” he says.
But he himself, of course, was employed as a driver for the team at the time and tried to focus on that. “But when you’re there and you’re focused on your work and you realize that things aren’t up to scratch in the operational area, of course that frustrated me a bit. “
Many contracts for few places
And although Gutierrez had only finished in the top 10 once in two years with the team, they wanted to keep the Mexican and his sponsorship money for 2015. The only problem was that they apparently wanted many other drivers as well.
Adrian Sutil claimed to have a contract for the season, as did Giedo van der Garde, who announced the end of his career a few days ago. The Dutchman turned up at the team at the start of the season in Australia and tried to sue his way into his cockpit – with success.
Van der Garde was proved right, but gave up his seat after reaching an agreement with the team – Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr ended up driving. And Esteban Gutierrez? He also received an offer from Kaltenborn.
In Austin 2014, the team boss called Gutierrez to a meeting and said that she would like to continue working with him.
Gutierrez did not want to be fifth …
“I looked at her and said, ‘Monisha, how can you offer me a seat for next year? When you already have four drivers under contract?” said Gutierrez. “She looked at me: ‘Esteban, that’s not true’. And I’m like, ‘I know. This conversation here isn’t going anywhere because I know what’s going on.'”
He had seen that things were going in a direction at Sauber “that wouldn’t look good,” he says. “And when I saw that with Giedo, I knew it made sense. “
