The Sauber Formula 1 team has set the target of achieving double Q3 appearances in tไhe remaining races of 2018, despite slowing down development on its current car.

Sauber has made impressive gains this season t༺o lift itself of the bottom of🌺 F1’s pecking order and up to ninth in the constructors’ standings, having enjoyed consistent points finishes across the opening 14 rounds of the campaign.

The Swiss squad was boosted by significant backing from Alfa♚ Romeo as well as forming closer ties to Ferrari, while it signed Simone Resta from the Scuderia in July to spearhead its technical depart🌊ment.

With attentions turning to the aerodynamic changes coming in for 2019, Sauber opted to stop major development on its 2018 challenger in order to prepare for next year, though the tea💃m still has high expectations fꦫor the rest of the campaign.

“I hope we will be progressing a little bit in the next races and tღhat we will be c𒈔loser and closer to Q3 with both cars,” Resta explained.

“The ꦡtrend so far has been good. I think i🤡t’s fair to say that we are slowing down our development rate for the time being, and we are concentrating mostly on next year’s car.

“That is a big challenge but also a big opportunity for us to close even further the gap to t❀he big [teams].”

Charles Leclerc, who will swap seats with Kimi Raikkonen to complete a “dr🌜eam” move to Ferrari next year, has already made three Q3 appearances in what has been a superb rookie season.

Leclerc called on Sauber to investigate why it s𒀰truggled for pace at Monza and believes the last race marked a rare occasion this season the team had brought an update that did not work.

“I thought we would have been a lot quicker than that but it has not been the case and it happens som🐭etimes,” he conceded.

“I think every time we brought something it always worked, and sometimes it happens and it doesn’t and that’s what happened.

“So we just ned to investigate to know what’s the exact cause of this so it doe💝sn’t happen again.”

Despite enjoying an improved set of results in 2018 - including recording Sauber’s latest top 10 finish at Spa - Marcus Ericsson, by his own admissio🌳n, has struggled to match Leclerc in qualifying trim and is yet to make it into the final seg✨ment of qualifying.

Ericsson is expecting a stronger showing in Singapore after a difficult w𝕴eekend in Italy, which began with the Swed♌e barrel-rolling in a terrifying high-speed crash during practice.

“I think in general we were a bit slower than expected, we thought we were going to be stronger on a track like [Monza]. But tไo be fair I think both Spa and at Monza with the lower downforce tracks we’ve been struggling a bit more,” he said.

“We all look forward to coming back to Singapore and more high downforce tracks, we were a lot stronger on them prior to the br꧒eak so hopefully we can get back on form in that type of track.”