Sauber Racing Director Xevi Pujolar has maintained faith in his team’s development progress this season as he has assured upgrades are in the pipeline.
After 9 Grands Prix and 2 Sprints in 2024, Sauber has not scored a single point in the championship. Alpine has overtaken them in the development race since Bahrain, leaving them as the slowest team on the grid right now.
“I think we are still pushing and developing, and we have some development in the pipeline.
“There is something coming.
“I cannot confirm how many races, but we are pushing hard to get something in the car that we can make a decent step here.”
Despite this, Pujolar was still able to see it from an objective point of view, admitting their main opposition has got the better of them on the in-season development race to date.
“For sure if you look at the competition against us, it seems that at the moment they have taken a bit of an advantage, and we just need to close it up again as soon as possible.
“Everybody that brings a decent step really gains a lot of positions.”
The Sauber team has not made the second phase of qualifying since the Chinese GP back in April, when Valtteri Bottas eventually made Q3 and qualified P10. The Swiss-based team has struggled to extract performance from their car over a single lap.
“I mean you can see now even in qualifying, even the midfield is mixing, getting close with the top teams sometimes. So that is encouraging, we just need to be able to be part of that.”
Sauber will be looking to finally get off the mark at Pujolar’s home race in Spain, with his team yet to get off the mark. They currently sit bottom of the Constructors’ Championship, six points behind where they were the last time the Formula One circus rocked up to the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
