Bravi delighted with Sauber's improvement during pit stops
Kick Sauber team representative Alessandro Alunni Bravi praised his team efforts for solving the pit stop issues that hindered the Hinwil-based outfit in the opening races of the season.
The Swiss outfit started the 2024 F1 season with a brand-new identitiy. Previous title sponsor Alfa Romeo left the Sauber-run organisation, and the team has returned to its original name, adding a new sponsor, Kick to it.
However, the new season did not start in a way that the team hoped for. The new car lacks speed compared to the teams that Sauber was in a battle with, and pit stops have also heavilty influenced their results in the opening stages of the season.
In the opening three races - Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Melbourne - Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu lost a significant amount of time during their stops with Sauber unable to complete tyre changes properly.
The issue was a new hardware that the team designed for 2024 in order to achieve quicker stops, but they were unable to make them reliable. However, Sauber introduced tweaks to the hardware in recent races which now appear to have solved the critical issues.
Kick Sauber team representative Alessandro Alunni Bravi took delight from the improvement: : "On a positive note: all three of our pit-stops today have been our fastest during the entire season so far.
"They were fast and consistent – something important as it shows that we can react and improve. Our most important target for the upcoming races is to improve in each and every area to bring us back into the fight for points.”
Despite the improvement in the pit lane, Sauber appeared to be the slowest team in Monaco with Bottas and Zhou unable to challenge for starting positions that could have enabled them to fight for points on a track where overtaking is at a premium.
Expanding on the Monaco round, the Italian added: “It was a processionary race with a red flag after lap one, where all drivers except Sargeant decided to change their tyres – ultimately resulting in no more pit stops being expected. We tried our best to allow our drivers to attack the cars in front of them, but at a track like Monaco, where overtaking possibilities are close to zero, positions for most of the field were locked in.
"We tried a different strategy with Valtteri, who drove an aggressive race, as we pitted him on lap 15 from the medium compound to hard tyres, which allowed him to have a strong pace and overtake Sargeant to secure P13 – the maximum for today.
"Zhou experienced a more difficult race: he was stuck behind Sargeant until we decided to have him swap position with Valtteri. During the last segment of the race, he lost his position to the Williams under blue flags, before we pitted him onto the soft compound in case of a late Safety Car that didn’t happen," Bravi concluded.
