Trouble-free first day for Sauber
The Sauber F1 Team with its drivers Kamui Kobayashi and Sergio Pérez made full use of the first day of practice ahead of the inaugural Indian Grand Prix. The brand new Buddh International Circuit welcomed F1 with an extremely dusty and slippery surface, but stable weather conditions with a dry heat. Both drivers did a lot of set-up work and completed the programme as planned.
Kamui Kobayashi:
Sauber C30-Ferrari (Chassis 02 / Ferrari 056)
1st Practice: 10th / 1:29.355 min (29 laps) / 2nd Practice: 12th / 1:28.050 min (34 laps)
“The lay-out of the track is really nice, and I have a good feeling driving the circuit. Because it is new it was very dusty and slippery, especially in the morning. The first laps were like driving in the wet. Here we have the soft and the hard tyre compounds. With the hard ones you cannot really drive here, while with the soft tyres it was still not easy to heat them up and get them to work properly, but there is no comparison to the hard ones.”
Sergio Pérez:
Sauber C30-Ferrari (Chassis 03 / Ferrari 056)
1st Practice: 14th / 1:30.132 min (25 laps) / 2nd Practice: 13th / 1:28.289 min (36 laps)
“The circuit is very nice, and I really enjoy driving here. Regarding the set-up work, it is quite challenging because you have many changes of direction and several fast corners as well as slow corners too. But we could complete our programme and have the feeling we are getting there. Of course the track conditions were improving during the course of the day. The hard tyre compound doesn’t work, so it won’t be easy to create a race strategy in which it makes really sense. However, everyone has to use it in a dry race.”
Giampaolo Dall’Ara, Head of Track Engineering: “When you come to a new venue it is always important that you have a trouble free first day, and this is what we had. We completed our normal Friday programme as planned and worked on the set-up of the car. It is impossible to get grip from the hard tyre compound but this didn’t come as a surprise.”
