Sauber completed the first race of the European calendar with zero points to its name which means the team remain on zero points so far in 2024. Try as they might with different strategies on a track where it is difficult to overtake, they were facing an uphill battle as their rivals had brought a host of successful upgrades to Imola.
Zhou Guanyu finished Sunday’s Grand Prix in P15 while heavy tyre degradation saw teammate Valtteri Bottas cross the line P18. Due to the fact the team certainly had better race pace than what they showed in qualifying, their Racing Director Xevi Pujolar says this is an area that needs to be improved.
Starting from P16 and P17, both Sauber drivers knew that it would take something special to be able to battle for points. Safety Cars would have been pivotal but never came at Sunday’s race in Imola. This was all the more surprising after gravel additions for 2024 and several cars running off track in the previous days.
“Today in the race, we knew it would be a one-stop, we tried to cover different windows of safety cars, that’s why we split the cars,” Pujolar explained. “But nothing happened, and it was difficult to make further progress.”
Pujolar went on to highlight how much of a knock-on effect the strategy of Fernando Alonso had on the field as the 2-time F1 Drivers’ World Champion sought damage limitation after a pit lane race day start.
Valtteri Bottas was called in very early because of and had to run over 50 laps on the hard tyre. He really struggled towards the end, losing out to Magnussen, the Alpines, his teammate and Sargeant.
“We wanted to go more aggressive with Valtteri, and then we ended up even more aggressive than what we wanted because Alonso went quite hard on it. And then everyone had to be responding. Then we had to wait in case there was a Safety Car.
“For sure the tyres on Valtteri were quite worn towards the end of the stint. But even if we changed something, the last hope was if there was a Safety Car, then to put soft for the last 10 laps, but nothing happened, so we tried to stay there.”
This all meant that Bottas and Zhou would be stuck in a DRS train for the majority of the race as Imola is notoriously difficult to overtake on in modern Formula One.
It was not all doom and gloom for Sauber fans though as the pit stop issues that have impacted the team heavily so far this season look to be sorted.
“At least we had the hardware update here,” said Pujolar. “The first part of the hardware update, I think we’ll have more things coming. But it was good that at least now we can be back fighting at the pitstops and we can protect positions, so that was encouraging.”
Pujolar also commented on the recent upgrades on show and compared how they match up with their rivals.
“We had also a floor upgrade, it was not a big step, but also it was responding as we expected. Obviously, everyone was bringing new parts, and we can see some competitors taking a bit of a step, so we need to just keep working hard and close the gap,” said Pujolar.
The gap has extended further after the impressive Yuki Tsunoda claimed another point for his team with his P10 finish resulting in a haul of 20 points already this season. Pujolar admitted that “Racing Bulls at the moment are a step ahead of us.”
Sauber’s real competition at present is with Alpines and Williams but this doesn’t stop Pujolar from remaining positive.
“If we want to really challenge the Racing Bulls and Haas, we need to keep working hard,” Pujolar said. “We’ve got some parts coming for Monaco, the gaps are quite small, and a lot of season to go ahead. We just need to keep focused and keep working hard.”
The further back the grid you look, the closer the competition is. Qualifying is an excellent demonstration of this fact and was an area Pujolar highlighted. Small margins can lead to vastly different conclusions.
“In terms of in qualifying, for sure the conditions were a bit difficult to put a lap together,” Pujolar explained. “But we’re talking about in a few milliseconds we were in Q2. Once you’re in Q2, the deltas are always very, very small. It’s just development, really, what you need.”
Pujolar was also asked if he things that the planned updates can take his team closer to the top 10. His answer was definite as he said “Closer to the direct competitors, yes.” However, there are two ways to read this answer seeing how Sauber’s direct competition are not yet currently battling for the top 10.
The main issue to hit the headlines for Sauber is their elongated pitstops and again discussion turned to this with Pujolar being asked if he was 100% on the safe side now, on the pitstop, from the hardware side.
“I think in this business, being 100%, there’s always something that’s possible, but we try to be better every time,” Pujolar said. “And I think that was a good step. Now it’s giving us more confidence, we can start to push for performance. We want to be not only safe at the pitstops, but we want to be at the top of the pitstop performance. So that gives the crew also the confidence to push more.”
With Imola in the history books, all eyes are on Monaco and whether Sauber can start the weekend on the pace. Pujolar’s reply showed again that confidence is high.
“Yes, that’s the target,” Pujolar confirmed before expanding on how the team plan to do so. “For sure it’s a very specific track layout, but we’re doing a lot of work in the simulator, just to prepare for this race weekend. It’s quite specific also with the car configuration. But we go there with a good optimism, also with the parts that we’ll have for the weekend.”
As confident as Pujolar may be, it is clear that Sauber have work to do in qualifying and there is more performance to extract based on what the car shows on race day.
“Qualifying is, for us at the moment, very important and is one of the key topics that we are focusing.
“Because also, at the moment our race pace is better relative to the competitors. The race pace is slightly better than the qualifying.
“So, if we can qualify better, if at the end of lap one we are in a better position, everything becomes much easier.”
As to whether the issue which needs to be addressed was a set-up issue or more general, Pujolar explained: “It’s just a general thing. For sure there are specific set-ups that can help you a bit more in qualifying. But now we are working with the whole car, just trying to put more performance.”
Sauber’s result this past Sunday, was by their own admission, the best the team could hope for. The field of competition Sauber are in is very tight but Pujolar can see the gains to be found with an improvement in qualifying.
Monaco is a track – like Imola – well known for being challenging to overtake at. However, if Sauber cannot get on the pace in qualifying in the principality, they may find that they have another very long race day ahead of them. As for the gap to their rivals, there seems more likelihood of that being extended as opposed to reduced.
