Sauber needs reserve driver in 2017 - boss

Sauber has acknowledged it may need to appoint an official reserve driver for 2017.

Until a buyout deal, the Swiss team spent the first part of the championship fighting for mere financial survival.

Now in Malaysia, Marcus Ericsson has arrived from a training camp in Thailand covered in bandages, having crashed his road bicycle at 45kph.

Team boss Monisha Kaltenborn admits it has raised a potential issue for the future, even though the Swede is fit to drive at Sepang.

"We do not have a reserve driver, so if the injury was more serious we would have had a problem," he said.

"Perhaps we would consider an option with Ferrari’s reserve drivers, but in any case, we need to resolve this issue for next year," Kaltenborn added.

Sauber’s buyout deal is closely linked with Ericsson’s Swedish backers, but the driver is refusing to say if he will even drive for the team in 2017.

"Sooner or later I will know," the Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet quotes Ericsson as saying.

"As far as I know, my management is speaking with the teams that still have vacancies."