Sauber had a Dutch Grand Prix to forget this past Sunday at Zandvoort. The team struggled to be competitive throughout the race and in a grand prix which featured no retirements, Valtteri Bottas and team-mate, Zhou Guanyu, finished 19th and 20th respectively. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Team Representative saying it was potentially ‘the most difficult race of the season’ for the team.
Sauber is certainly a team in transition as regular announcements state how the changes are in place for their Audi rebrand in 2026. At present, their car lacks performance and this was evident in Zandvoort as the team was lapped twice. Sauber’s concerns don’t end there as they are also experiencing higher tyre degradation than their rivals. Bravi reflected on this point in comments to media.
“So, no matter the strategy, we can’t change the result. We found ourselves in a very difficult situation and we need to understand whether today’s performance is more related to the track characteristics, due to wind conditions and corner balance.”
Such a viewpoint was also being heard from the team’s driver Valtteri Bottas as he gave his verdict on proceedings.
“This has been arguably our weakest weekend of the season, and the race just confirmed this. We had a really good start and climbed to a decent position: everything was under control for the first few laps but we soon realised we couldn’t keep up with the cars ahead. That’s when reality struck, we were just not fast enough in the race and that’s where we ended up.”
Sauber tried to react to the struggles they were facing and clearly hoped race performance would improve with a change of tyres and that is exactly what they did. After starting on new softs, Bottas’ first stop had him switch to a new hard compound and then his final change on lap 43 to a new medium but as Bottas said: “we tried them all and they wouldn’t make a difference.”
It may not all be doom and gloom for Sauber as they have also been keen in their remarks to highlight the fact that they believe the unique circuit characteristics at Zandvoort – the banking, the surface, the camber and the wind – amplifies their weaknesses due to the fact it highlights the sensitivity of their 2024 challenger.
With that in mind Bottas stated: “I know we haven’t made a step back, this weekend gave us a lot of things to take in for the future and lots to learn.”
Such a positive mindset and soundbite may be to be expected from Bottas as he looks the more likely of the team’s current drivers to retain his F1 seat with Nico Hulkenberg already announced as a driver on a multi-year contract for Sauber starting from 2025. The Finnish driver concluded with a call to arms that: “As a team, we need to continue working hard and keep pushing not to lose confidence, as we still have many races ahead of us.”
However, Bottas’ teammate, Zhou Guanyu, was very open with the fact that he was always expecting to not be that competitive but even so he “didn’t expect it to be that difficult.” The Chinese racer explained how even from lap one he was struggling for grip.
“This weekend has been tough for us, definitely not what we wanted coming back from the break. We were quite far off compared to our main rivals throughout the weekend as soon as the track turned dry, which is how we ran today’s race. In any case, it will be important for us to understand why we struggle so much on high fuel – as the changes we implemented didn’t quite work for us.”
The changes which Zhou Guanyu was alluding too was probably the fact that his side of the garage also ran all three tyre compounds through the race but to no avail. Also, a worrying point for Sauber, they have made upgrades and are still at the back. The Chinese racer reflected on this fact too after being told in the post-race interview that his team seem stuck at the moment.
“Yeah, at the moment we’re obviously a little bit stuck and of course we have a few things planned coming up. Probably not next weekend, but after that. But, yeah, compared to most of the rivals, I think we’re on the late side, but also it’s due to some other issues we were facing in the equipment side early of the season, I think that delayed a lot of the process. So, yeah, difficult season so far, but hopefully we can just understand where we need to go, the direction for the future, because at the moment, I think, in general, this car is quite difficult for us to drive and to keep up with the others.”
The situation should be better for Sauber in Monza. It will obviously be a different track layout which should also be less impacted by windy conditions. The team’s performance at the Dutch Grand Prix was certainly not how they would have wanted to restart after the summer break. Even so, if they can’t get on top of things, Sauber may have 9 very long race weekends still ahead of them as they remain the only ‘pointless’ team in this season’s F1 Constructors’ Championship.
