Sauber disappointed to finish outside the points
For the first time this season neither Sauber F1 Team driver finished a race in the top ten. Sergio Pérez, having started 16th, just missed scoring by coming 11th in the hot European Grand Prix. After having started on the harder tyres, he only made one stop for the softer compound after 25 laps. Kamui Kobayashi had started 14th on the softer tyres, stopped twice and finished 16th.
Overall the Sauber C30-Ferrari was not quick enough on the Valencia street circuit to allow the drivers to attack.
Sergio Pérez: 11th
Sauber C30-Ferrari (Chassis 02 / Ferrari 056)
Tyres: start on medium tyres, after 25 laps change to soft tyres
“In the beginning I had a very difficult time with the harder tyres, but also with the softer ones I had a lack of grip and later in the race I lost a lot of time due to blue flags. It was not an easy Grand Prix for a comeback and I’m happy I was able to race again. I gave a hundred percent, but I’m afraid this was the maximum we could get today. However, we will analyse how we can improve for the future, and I’m sure Silverstone will be better.”
Kamui Kobayashi: 16th
Sauber C30-Ferrari (Chassis 01 / Ferrari 056)
Tyres: Start on soft tyres, after 11 laps medium tyres, after 33 laps soft tyres
“It was a very tough race for me. I struggled all the time and never had the performance to fight. It was difficult to manage the tyres. I tried to take care of them as well as possible, but they were gone pretty quickly. Then, at those times when I wanted to push, I got stuck in traffic. We have some work to do, this is for sure.”
Peter Sauber, Team Principal: “Up to this race we were able to manage tyres better in the race than others, however, today, this wasn’t the case. During the whole weekend we were not strong enough as a team, but we know we can do better.”
James Key, Technical Director: “We are disappointed to finish outside the top ten for the first time this year. We took a gamble with both cars with the strategy to try and make something out of our compromised grid positions. Sergio did an excellent job to do a one stop race, which for here was always going to be pretty tough. He made his way to P11 in the end and wasn’t too far from the cars ahead in the points. He got quite badly held up by blue flags, and lost quite a bit of lap time there. That happened just before the last stops, and it dropped him back a bit, so we couldn’t make it there at the end. However, it was a good effort from him to hang on to the tyres. Kamui started on the soft tyres, then went on the medium in the middle stint, and tried to use the new soft tyres in the end as a two stopper. That didn’t quite work out. The medium tyres were too slow, but we didn’t want to run too long on the soft in the end. In hindsight maybe a three stop strategy would have been better. It was always going to be difficult to get a car in the points from where we started, because overtaking is still difficult here. We now have to go to Silverstone, a very different track from the last three, and make sure that we can improve.”
