Mixed feelings for Sauber after Indian qualifying
There were mixed feelings after the qualifying session for the Indian Grand Prix in the Sauber F1 Team. While Sergio Pérez exceeded expectations by qualifying eighth, there was disappointment about Kamui Kobayashi ending up 17th. A brief black out of the telemetry ultimately led to a wrong setting on the Sauber C31-Ferrari and robbed him of his chances of progressing to Q3.
Sergio Pérez, Sauber C31-Ferrari (Chassis 03/Ferrari 056):
FP3: 13th (1:27.162 min / new soft tyres / 21 laps)
Q: 8th in Q3 (1:26.360 min / new soft tyres)
“Today’s result is a nice surprise and it was hard work to get there. I am personally very happy with P8 and I am really pleased for the team. It was a great effort from the guys to improve the car after Friday when we were struggling so much. In Q2 I think I managed to get in a perfect lap. The one in Q3 wasn’t that good but still okay. I am very motivated for tomorrow’s race and want to score as many points as possible.”
Kamui Kobayashi, Sauber C31-Ferrari (Chassis 04/Ferrari 056):
FP3: 18th (1:27.983 min / new soft tyres / 19 laps)
Q: 17th in Q2 (1:27.219 min / used soft tyres)
“It is a shame I ended up 17th in qualifying. Actually the pace of the car is better now than it was before, but in the end in Q2 it all went wrong. I had decided to take fuel for only one lap and then we made a mistake with the car’s settings, which caused the brake balance to be completely wrong. I then didn’t have a second chance because of the fuel. So I did my best time on a used set of soft tyres instead of making use of the fresh ones at the end. However, tomorrow we have to make the most out of the tyres we still have available and the fact this circuit allows for overtaking.”
Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal:
“After a difficult start to the weekend, which was mainly dominated by finding the right tyre management, the team and the drivers were able to improve the performance significantly in qualifying. Eighth for Sergio is a very good result under these circumstances. Unfortunately Kamui was not able to benefit from the improvement due to a technical issue which was clearly not his mistake.”
Giampaolo Dall’Ara, Head of Track Engineering:
“First of all Sergio did a good job in qualifying. Eighth was the maximum possible today. With Kamui we had a unique issue. Because of a momentary shut down of the telemetry he went into corner one with the wrong KERS recovery setting, which leads to a wrong brake balance and that is why he had to abort his final attempt in Q3.“
