Sauber apathetic on qualifying outcome
The Sauber F1 Team drivers finished qualifying for the Russian Grand Prix in 14th (Esteban Gutiérrez) and 15th (Adrian Sutil) on the new track in Sochi. These are the results which could realistically be expected. For the race the goal is to put in a flawless performance.
Esteban Gutiérrez, car #21, Sauber C33-Ferrari (Chassis 01/Ferrari), 14th: “It was an interesting competition today. We missed quite a lot of time in the morning due to a technical issue. I was still experimenting with the set-up in the third free practice, and during the qualifying laps I was able to improve between the runs. It was pretty important to put in a strong lap on track at the end of the qualifying. I think it is a great competition between Adrian and myself, we are really pushing to the limit which brings some excitement.”
Adrian Sutil, car #99, Sauber C33-Ferrari (Chassis 02/Ferrari), 15th: “It was a normal qualifying, but it was difficult to get the tyres up to temperature. Unfortuntaly, I could not extract the maximum as I made a mistake on my final lap. Without this incident I probably would have finished one position better, which would not be a huge difference. Under the current circumstances there is not more to expect. In the race we have to make the best out of every chance we get.”
Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal: “Based on Friday’s results, we knew what we were able to achieve. Our grid positions are where we could expect them to be. Concerning the race, once again the goal is to make no mistakes and be ready when opportunities present themselves.”
Giampaolo Dall’Ara, Head of Track Engineering: “In the morning a red flag and a software problem cost Esteban some time and, as a result, he lost one run in FP3. I have to praise his recovery, because, despite these problems, he managed to put together good laps and to maximise the car’s performance in qualifying. For Adrian technically things went smoothly today. This morning we did some checks on the aerodynamic set-up, in order to make the right final call. In fact we found some performance, but then in qualifying he made a mistake and lost several tenths of a second. We are where we expected to be.”
