Nico Hulkenberg is happy with life at Sauber. Photo: AC
Nico Hulkenberg was in positive mood after his first two days of testing with Sauber at Jerez this week.
The German said there were no obvious issues with the C32, adding that the car was a good starting point. The proved to be reliable, despite the constraints provided by extremely tight packaging at the rear and around the sidepods.
“I’ve basically gotten a bit more comfortable with the car,” he said when asked for his thoughts by this blog. “First two days in the office, obviously quite a few things and items to get used to, so that was my main priority, to come here and make sure I’m comfortable in the car, seating-wise, and then obviously with the steering wheel, etc etc.
“We’re making sure the car is reliable, we had no issues on that side in those two days. We had quite a large test programme already which we completed successfully, and two very productive days.
“It’s something we can build on, it’s I think a good baseline. It needs good development, further work. We know in F1 you cannot stop.”
Asked if he thought it would be a competitive car, he said: “I think so, yeah. At this point I can’t see a big issue. At some point I looked at the timing monitor, it looked like qualifying already, it was separated by only a few hundredths! We should be happy with the two days, the car performed reasonable well, and like I said something we can build on.”
Sauber does not have a simulator, and despite being brought up on one at both Williams and Force India Nico says he did not miss that extra preparation.
“No, not really. To be honest I felt quite good without it. You’re right, normally at this point we would have been in the simulator a couple of times already, but not having it didn’t really make a difference in terms of me coming here and driving on the circuit, and having the Formula One feeling.”
Adam Cooper F1 