A method for influencing a control program having a plurality of first functions and at least one of the first functions is configured to control an actuator, and a memory is provided and the memory has memory regions occupied by subprograms assigned to the first functions, whereby there is a branch address in the program code of the control program when one of the first functions is called up that points to a memory address of the subprogram associated with the function call. The control program is analyzed for the occurrence of function calls, and the branch addresses, associated with the function calls, and addresses of the return commands are ascertained. One of the first functions is selected to be deleted. The first function is replaced by a second function, in which the program code of the selected first function is overwritten by the program code of the second function.