Sauber happy to recover after dismal FP3
After the third free practice on Saturday morning things didn’t look promising at all with both Sauber F1 Team drivers being unhappy with their cars. Further set-up changes paid off and qualifying went better than expected. Sergio Pérez qualified eighth for the Bahrain Grand Prix, Kamui Kobayashi came 12th.
Sergio Pérez, Sauber C31-Ferrari (Chassis 03/Ferrari 056):
Qualifying: 8th (1:33.394 min in Q3 / new soft tyres)
3rd Practice: 13th (1.35.067 min / new soft tyres / 17 laps)
“Today was a very good qualifying and another great effort by the team. The result is a lot better than we expected after free practice. We really managed to maximise the car’s potential today. The target now is to gain some positions at the start and then we will see how the race develops. It will be pretty tricky for everybody tomorrow in terms of tyre degradation. Another podium doesn’t look realistic at all; this track isn’t an easy one for us anyway. But we will go for points.”
Kamui Kobayashi, Sauber C31-Ferrari (Chassis 01/Ferrari 056):
Qualifying: 12th (1:33.806 min in Q2 / new soft tyres)
3rd Practice: 14th (1.35.128 min / new soft tyres / 14 laps)
“With my last set of fresh tyres it went quite well and I could improve at the beginning of my final lap but then I made a mistake at turn eleven. I lost a couple of tenths there. Overall the car was much better in qualifying than it had been in free practice this morning. Basically we have gone back to yesterday’s set-up and that was the right decision. This circuit here should be fairly good for overtaking. Of course straight line speed is essential for that and I hope we can do well tomorrow.”
Giampaolo Dall’Ara, Head of Track Engineering:
“The result is in the region we expected it to be before we came here. We were aware that it would be difficult to be as good as in China, but everything went okay today. We struggled a bit with the balance in the morning. This track is definitely not easy for us but then qualifying was fine and both drivers did a good job. Technically there were no problems. For the race the trick will be good tyre management without sacrificing too much pace. We are definitely in a position to fight for points.”
