Wheatley claims Sauber's transformation into Audi is showing results

At the British Grand Prix two weeks ago, Hulkenberg secured Sauber's first podium finish since the end of 2012, coming in third behind Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

This result propelled Sauber to sixth place in the Constructors' Championship with 41 points, 18 behind fifth-placed Williams.

Sauber introduced a new floor at the start of the Spanish Grand Prix weekend in early June. In the four races since, the team has amassed 35 points thanks to strong performances from Nico Hulkenberg and rookie Gabriel Bortoleto.

In fact, during this period, only McLaren, Ferrari, and Mercedes have scored more points than Sauber.

"I can talk the talk, I can say we're building momentum, I can say we're improving our performance, I can say that all the effort Mattia (Binotto) put in before I arrived is starting to pay off.

"All of that is true, but we still have a long way to go to get where we want to be as a team. This is a good first step. From Barcelona onwards, we've seen greater confidence in our drivers. Before that, the car was very on-edge.

"You've probably noticed that it was very difficult for the drivers to improve their times throughout qualifying, which was one of our biggest problems. I remember in Jeddah both drivers struggled with braking into the first corner, and now we don't even talk about it," explained Wheatley.