Tag Archives: formula-1

The Sauber team has yet to score a point in 2024

Thus far the 2024 season has not been a great one for Sauber, as the team currently lies 10^th and last in the World Championship as the only entrant yet to have scored a point.

In addition, the C44 has been the slowest car in qualifying in the last four races in Miami, Imola, Monaco and Montreal. That’s not to say that Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu have always been stranded in 19^th and 20^th, but every other team has had at least one of its cars ahead on the grid on all of those weekends.

Given that the team is gearing up for Audi works status in 2026, and is trying to convince drivers of the calibre of Carlos Sainz to come in board, it’s not an ideal situation.

Having said that it’s worth recalling that Bottas and Zhou were ninth and 10^th in sprint qualifying in Shanghai in April, and that the Finn made Q3 for the main event that weekend as well.

However, in a midfield where every tenth makes a difference it’s clear that Sauber has lost some momentum as others have developed more effectively.

Indeed, at the last race in Canada despite a high attrition rate ahead and the rain creating an opportunity Bottas and Zhou could manage only 13^th and 15^th places.

Team representative Alessandro Alunni Bravi, the man overseeing operations at the track, admits that it was a difficult afternoon in Montreal.

“First of all, we decided to change the rear wing ahead of the race in order to go for a wet setup to try to maximise an opportunity in case of a full wet race,” the Italian told this writer.

“I think that this choice was correct looking at the race. But we don’t have at this moment enough performance to fight for the points.

“We struggled with the warm-up of the tyres, because we have seen at the start and out of the pit stop, it took our drivers two or three laps to get the tyres in the right temperature window, and there we lost the opportunity to stay close to our competitors, and try to overtake them. But I think that the race was positive, we made the right calls at the right moment.”

Alunni Bravi admits that the team has a lot of catching up to do in the 2024 development race: “We need to work on the performance of the car, because in both dry and wet conditions, we don’t have enough pace to fight for the points.

“This is the situation now. We know that it’s difficult, but the only thing to do is to work and try to develop even further the car, starting from the next race. We have 15 races left, and I cannot imagine that we will stay in this position for so long.

“We are not happy about this situation. I think we need to distinguish between performance and race result. The race results are disappointing, but we have seen that the performance was according to the targets we set out at the beginning of the season.

“But we were not able to translate the performance into race results at the beginning of the season for reliability issues, also linked to the pit stops. And now because compared to the others over a single lap, a qualifying lap, our main competitors did a bigger step.

“We need to recover this gap and to improve, especially our qualifying pace. And to do this, we just need to work hard. Nothing is compromised. But of course, we need a quick reaction.”

Bottas suggested in Montreal that recent updates, while working and finding some performance, are simply not doing enough.

“We brought the developments at each race, not just track specific,” says Alunni Bravi. “In Montreal we had the new rear wing for medium/low downforce level with a new concept, a new family of rear wings, the mono pylon.

“We had also some other parts on the car, a new lower beam wing, and of course, we will have also in Barcelona a track specific rear wing.

“And our development plan is continued during all the season. It is clear that we need to push even more on development, because there is a gap that we need to recover, not just in terms of points, also in terms of performance.

“What we have done is not enough to stay ahead of our main competitors. This is clear, and everybody is aware that we need to do more.”

The fact that the likes of McLaren and Mercedes have shown that it is possible to successfully develop their cars into podium and win contenders does at least provide some inspiration.

“It’s very good for F1 to have unpredictable races and more teams that have the opportunity to fight for podiums and wins,” says Alunni Bravi.

“We have seen that Mercedes recovered the gap in the beginning of the season, and now they are a race contender together with Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren. I think this is a very exciting fight that shows that the championship only ends when the last chequered flag is displayed.

“And this is also important for us. There is a possibility to recover. Nothing is lost. And if we work well, we can also come back to the fight for the points.”

Oliver Bearman looks set to have a Haas seat in 2025 – but he remains cautious

Oliver Bearman says that ongoing speculation that a deal has already been done for him race for the Haas Formula 1 team in 2025 is “unhealthy”.

Bearman was linked with a seat at the US-owned team even before Nico Hulkenberg’s departure for Sauber created a definite opening.

The British teenager did two FP1 sessions for the team last year, and having made his race debut with Ferrari in Saudi Arabia he is continuing with an already planned FP1 programme with Haas, with his latest outing in Barcelona this weekend.

However despite strong suggestions in the paddock he insists that he had not yet been told that he has the race seat for 2025.

“These are all rumours and speculation and stuff, and there’s not really any backing to them,” he said when asked about 2025.

“I try to just stay focused on what I can do on driving the car, and in the end, I try and stay away from this speculation, because it’s unhealthy at the end.”

Bearman downplayed the widespread assumption in the paddock that he will eventually get the Haas seat.

“I don’t know if the assumption is wrong or right,” he said. “I mean, of course, that’s my goal. That’s what I’m aiming towards. There’s no hiding that.

“I have a few things personally that I’ve identified that I want to improve when I’m driving in F1, but that really comes with experience and doing more laps, and I think just me working towards that goal is going to hopefully be enough to get me where I want to be.”

Asked if he has any timeline for a decision he said: “Personally, no. My goal is, of course, as a driver to keep performing well, I think my FP1 in Imola went really well, and I was happy with that.

“So I want to keep doing that. In terms of the timeframe, I don’t have anything defined.”

Bearman conceded that Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur is keeping a close eye on his progress, and that he’s also in contact with Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu.

“So of course, with Fred, first of all, he keeps an eye in the background, probably without me knowing,” he said. “I like to stay updated with him and in the loop, because it’s nice to know where you stand almost.

“Also with Ayao, I didn’t have time to catch up with him during Imola. I knew him last year as being the second in command, let’s say, but now he’s moved to team principal, it’s a much more demanding job. So he didn’t have time to sit down with me during the race weekend.

“But I caught up with him a bit in Maranello as well, and it’s nice to kind of be on the same page. And also having driven the Ferrari quite a lot now, I have a few points where I can find differences between the Ferrari and the Haas, and see if I can help in that way as well.”

Bearman also downplayed the importance of his FP1 programme in securing the drive.

“These practice sessions are also practice for me for the future,” he said. “Hopefully I’ll get the chance to do a lot more FP1s, if you catch my drift! 

“So yeah, I don’t feel like I need to prove myself. But that’s really been the case since the beginning, since Mexico last year, my FP1.

“It was made clear to me that I didn’t need to prove myself, that if I just drove within what I’m capable of, that’s already proving So, yeah, I don’t feel like I’m overpushing, or overdoing it. I’m just enjoying the session and using it to build up my knowledge base, basically.”

Bearman admitted that he still has much to learn ahead of a possible graduation.

“I tend to get up to speed pretty well,” he said. “That’s one of my strengths. In Jeddah, that was the case, and even in Imola, I seem to be on the pace pretty quickly.

“But whenever we do a quali sim on soft tyres I don’t make the step that easily, because it’s quite a big step. The track is evolving a lot, the tyre grip is suddenly much higher, and the fuel loads are lower, and I tend not to maximise that yet.

“I don’t need to really overthink that, or worry about it. It’s just something that comes with experience. And it will come, I’m not worried about that. It’s just I’ve identified it as something that I can work on and improve.”

Hulkenberg was quick on wets in the early stages in Montreal

Nico Hulkenberg says the Canadian GP was “intense” and “sketchy” after he survived a tricky race to earn 11^th place for Haas.

Hulkenberg was beset by an aerodynamic issue over the course of the weekend that compromised him in qualifying and saw him start 17^th.

Like team mate Kevin Magnussen he started on full wet tyres, which helped him to move up to seventh in the early laps, before his pace fell away and he had to switch to inters.

Attrition ahead in the late stages helped him to the edge of the points, but he had no regrets about the strategy.

“It paid off,” he said of the call to start on wets. “I don’t know, the first maybe 10 laps we were gaining a lot and picking up a lot of positions, but then eventually it stopped raining and it dried out and it kind of got reversed or undone, all the work we did. A race with so much stuff happening.

“I think we were a bit unlucky with the first safety car. I think timing to go on slicks was good, not on the early side, because it was difficult in sector one, mostly.

“An interesting race, very intense, very sketchy. And a couple of scare moments too. A couple of near in the wall. But I guess that’s kind of normal in these conditions.”

His near misses included a big drift at Turn 2 at around half distance, which he managed to catch.

“There were a couple of moments, I have it, no, I have it, no!,” he said. “I let go of the steering because it was full opposite lock, and I was about, I think, to grab for the clutch, and then somehow it stopped, and I was able to catch it. But, yeah, that was one of them.

“And almost one out of Turn 4 earlier, when it was still more wet, I lost it there, but still managed to get it.”

Hulkenberg was adamant that the aero issue remained in his car throughout.

“The missed opportunity was yesterday, and generally all weekend the problem we’ve had on my car that somehow it’s not, I think, fully healthy on the aero side, or somewhere,” he said.

“I still feel after the race that I have a problem with it, that is not fully in at 100% where we’re supposed to be.

“But obviously you do what you can with what you have. Also not having the Friday, not having time to react after that, it’s just all together a difficult weekend with the circumstances.”

Expanding on the aero issue he said: “I think the whole weekend, especially on my side of the garage, from lap one, I didn’t feel right and happy with the car.

“And we need to investigate what was going on, because that really compromised our weekend, and obviously everything that happened, and then quali cost us a better result. I’m sure with a better quali that we normally have, if we started further ahead, we would have scored points.”

Ocon and Gasly swapped places with a lap to go in Montreal

Pierre Gasly says the delay in getting past his Alpine Formula 1 team mate Esteban Ocon at the end of the Canadian GP was “no big deal” despite it potentially costing him a place.

In the closing laps Ocon and Gasly were running ninth and 10^th, with the former suffering with a power unit issue.

Ocon was asked to let Gasly past in order to have a shot at Daniel Ricciardo in front. He initially declined to do so, saying “forget it” on the team radio.

Eventually he moved over at the end of the penultimate lap, making it clear that he expected the positions to be reversed if Gasly couldn’t pass Ricciardo.

However it was too late for Gasly to challenge the VCARB driver, and then he team opted not to switch the positions back at the final corner, much to Ocon’s obvious frustration.

“I think today I’ve done my part of the job,” Ocon said after the flag. “I don’t think the team did their part of the job. I’ve been a team player, and I’ve always respected the instructions that I’ve been given, always. It’s always been the case, I showed it once more today.

“But yeah, the nice guy doesn’t always pay off in F1, and that is that is bothering me a lot. I hope things will turn around for me.”

The ninth and 10^th place finishes still represented the Enstone team’s best performance of the season to date.

“First of all I think the main news should be that we scored points with both cars,” said Gasly when asked by this writer about the team order discussion.

“And looking at all the simulation this morning, none of them looked that it will be achievable. So definitely a very positive day for the team.

“The target was quite clear at the end, I was faster on the hard tyre towards the end of the race, and I was right behind Daniel, and as soon as Daniel overtook Esteban, the goal was for the other car to let me pass, and for the last four laps to try to overtake Daniel with the DRS. It took slightly more time than we would have liked. But honestly, it’s no big deal.”

Regarding the timing of Ocon letting him by he added: “What’s tricky is these two laps is just enough for Daniel to break the DRS, and then when you do it two laps at the end, it’s, it’s too far away than it would have been done slightly earlier – I mean the DRS, and you get slightly more chances.

“But honestly, it’s no big deal. I still think we did a great teamwork today. We tried different stuff, we stayed out on the inter, I boxed, I put the hard tyres, we got some good data. 

“I think it was a very good day for the whole team, and to come out with these three points could be very valuable at the end of the year.”

Gasly admitted he was fortunate to survive a heavy nudge from Sergio Perez at the exit of the second corner on the first lap.

“I definitely thought that this will be it. And on a day like today, you just want to see the chequered flag. I haven’t really seen what’s happened. Visibility was extremely poor.

“All I felt is suddenly I was sideways, and I lost all the positions, we were almost lost by that time. And that’s why when I made the call to go on hard, I knew that it was touch and go, and when I came out of the pits it was very, very tough to stay on track.”

Gasly was the first driver to pit for slicks, although he nearly went off as he exited the pits.

“I couldn’t even turn!”, he said. “I was full lock, and the car was just even, like, first gear, just not turning. But then I was trying to get to the dry bit to get some grip. And I think looking back, it was a lap too early.

“But I knew I had to try it, because if I wanted to have a potential gain, then it was definitely worth the risk. And then after that, I actually managed to overtake a lot of cars. I built up some temperature, and managed to get by quite a lot of guys.

“So it was quite pleasant compared to last week [Monaco], where you’ve seen the same rear wing for the entire race. At least this weekend, it felt like there was quite a lot of action, and it was quite enjoyable.”

He added: “I think there was a lot of putting the wheels in the right place. And sometimes you could see that there was a different approach. And it was very fun, because it felt like karting days, where your line is not the ideal line, sometimes you’re all over the kerb.

“But then if it means your outside tyre on the dry bit, then you get extra grip. It was very fun, as the track was drying, just trying to figure out where the best grip is. And I think we did well in these conditions.

“I think the pace was looking pretty strong in the last few laps, the sort of normal pace, kind of everything got closer to the normal order of qualifying. But it was quite enjoyable condition.”

Gasly admits that Alpine still has much to do to improve the A524 and has to make the most of any chances that come.

“At the end of the day it was good teamwork,” he said. “That’s what we need until the end of the year, because we know Williams seems to have a competitive car, looking at the qualifying they had yesterday, it was quite impressive. Haas seems to have some good pace at times.

“And we know on days like today, we’ve got to make the best out of what we have, and we can’t afford to do any mistakes, and we can’t afford to take any unnecessary risk. So it was well-managed, and hopefully we’re going to continue like that until the end of the year.

“We won’t have any upgrades in the near future. We know the target is to have something a bit more significant at some stage in the year. I expect the next few races to be quite hard if its normal conditions, but this is F1, and you always have chances at times.

“So that’s why we’ve got to make sure we stay on top of it, and until we have the upgrades, just try to grab any opportunities that may arise.”

Leclerc endured a difficult weekend in Montreal

Charles Leclerc says that the Ferrari power unit issue that spoiled his Canadian GP made him a “sitting duck” in the first part of the race.

When a safety car came out the Monegasque driver lost a lot of time in the pits having the PU reset, and the team then took a gamble by sending him out on slick tyres while everyone else switched to fresh intermediates.

After struggling around for a couple of laps he was forced to pit again for intermediates, and having been lapped by the leaders his car was eventually retired by the team.

“I don’t know what happened,” said Leclerc when asked by this writer about the PU issue.

“Obviously we were losing a second. I mean, at first I think it was six-tenths, but then some laps, it was 1.2s, sometimes it was 1.5s, sometimes it was one second. So every time I was going on power, I didn’t know what I will get.

“It was first of all very difficult to drive, very frustrating, because in the straights I would get overtaken by everybody, and very annoying, because I had like 10 or 15 switches per lap to change, to try and reset everything and to try to make it work.

“But in the first part of the race, I think we did quite a good job managing that. And because we were in very wet conditions, or wet conditions, we could recover in corners. So I was still believing we could finish in the points. But then as soon as it dried up, I was a sitting duck in the straights.”

Leclerc admitted that the distraction of the switch adjustments didn’t make life easy.

“Actually, I found it a bit better when it was fully wet. The tricky part was then it was half dry/half wet. You’ve got to look at your steering wheel, and there you’ve got only one line. And if you are off by two or three or five centimetres, you are you are done. So that was very tricky.”

Leclerc conceded that while the PU issue was more frustrating than the unsuccessful tyre choice.

“It felt annoying, but at the end, that was the best we could do at that point,” he said. “I knew we will finish out of the points whatever happened with that issue, so we had to try something with the slicks.

“I was more frustrated about the whole situation and the engine performance in the straights than the actual choice, because if that was working out, maybe that was our only chance to maybe finish ninth, 10th.

“And without that working out, or staying in the position we were in before, we will have lost any points.”

Leclerc admitted that stopping the car was the logical choice: “It was quite frustrating as well, but I knew the race was over by that time, the only thing was I wasn’t feeling really happy in the car, because I had so much dust on my mirrors that I couldn’t see anything, and I just didn’t want to get in the way of people that were fighting for the lead.

“So that was the only situation I was in at the end, but I knew that it was finished by that time.”

Leclerc says the team has to bounce back from the disappointing Montreal weekend.

“We still have some work to do, and obviously, on a weekend like this we need to be on it and maximising all the points.

“I think that’s what we have done extremely well until now. Today with the engine issue I don’t think we could have maximised much more, but these are the things that we need to look at, and be on it.”

Leclerc also referenced the lack of pace in qualifying, which he says was not related to being on used tyres at the end of Q2: “I think the biggest problem was mostly the fact that we weren’t fast, whatever laps we were doing, on whatever tyres we were slow,” he said.

“And this we’ve got to look into it. I think it’s more tyre preparation once again, because we have seen some really good surprises of some teams, and some others that weren’t as good, including us, compared to what we would expect. So yeah, we’ll look into it.”

Perez had another tricky qualifying session in Canada

Sergio Perez says he struggled with his Red Bull RB20 while qualifying a frustrated 16^th in a “strange session” in Canada.

Like other drivers Perez had difficulties with tyre temperatures, and was lacking rear grip.

The Mexican qualified 18^th in the last race in Monaco, although he also started 16^th there after penalties for the Haas drivers gave him a boost.

The difficult Montreal weekend comes just a few days after he was confirmed at RBR until 2026.

“It’s a massive frustration,” he said when asked by this writer about his qualifying. “I think it was a session where everything was reset with the weather, and we just couldn’t get everything to work, especially the rear axle.

“I think it was a very strange session for a lot of cars out there, and we did the struggle quite a lot with the rear end. So I think we’ve got to understand what’s the reason behind it.”

Perez made it clear that there are lessons to be learned from how the session played out.

“I think in hindsight, there are things we could have done better, but fundamentally, we were lacking some pace today,” he said.

“I think the track being so green, it really reset things up. But I was just struggling to put the temperature into the tyre, and I think that was the main trouble.

“I think we’ve got some bits to understand. And hopefully we get through tomorrow, and if we are able to secure a couple of points that will be a good result. And then really just go from there.”

Regarding the bigger picture he said: “I think when you look at the Ferraris, they were on pole in Monaco, and I think this track is not very different to that.

“I think it’s a long season. It will only matter where we finish in Abu Dhabi. There will be very different tracks coming up. But like I say, I think we’ve got some fundamental issue today that we have to understand.”