Sauber boss Monisha Kaltenborn gave very little away when questioned about the contractual mess in which the team appears to have found itself.

Adrian Sutil has an ongoing two-year contract, and Giedo van der Garde is also believed to have signed some time ago.

However both Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr came along with big budgets and have been signed and announced for 2015. It looks likely that Sauber could face legal challenges from one or both of the drivers who have lost out.

Indeed it’s not hard to imagine that Van der Garde’s sponsors are furious that having paid for him to do some FP1 running this year, on the basis that he would race in 2015, the Dutchman has now been dumped. Van der Garde previously took legal action against Spyker over a contractual dispute – and won.

Kaltenborn refused even to concede that there was an issue – and demonstrated in full her legal training. Here’s what she had to say in answer to a series of questions on the subject…:

“We have announced our drivers and that’s how it’s going to be.”

“As I have said we have announced our drivers, if there are any other points related to it these are internal matters which we will discuss internally.”

“I am very clearly aware of my situation and I know what I’m doing. So we’ve announced our drivers, everything else we shall sort out internally.”

“As I told you for me it’s a clear situation.”

“These are internal things which I will discuss internally.”

“I’m not admitting it’s got to be resolved, all I said is if issues are coming up, we will look at them internally.”

“We know as I said what we are doing, and we are sure about that, if others have to go and say something, fine. But we shall discuss all these things internally.”

“Our situation is very clear, that’s what I can talk about. As I said we’ve announced our drivers, that’s it.”

It remains to be seen whether or not she is right to sound so confident…