Sunday 19 April 2015

12th and 14 for the Sauber F1 Team as they suffer technical problems

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(Sauber F1 Team)

The Sauber F1 Team endured a difficult race weekend at the Bahrain Grand Prix at the Sakhir circuit on Sunday as both Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr suffered technical issues over the course of the event.

The pair qualified for the race in 12th and 14th place respectively and speaking following the race, Marcus Ericsson stated:

I had a really good start into the race. On the first lap I moved up from 13th to ninth. In the first and second stints our lap times were quite strong, keeping up with our direct competitors. We were running as planned, but then unfortunately we had the mistake during the second pit stop due to a mechanical problem that came up when the crew changed the left front wheel. Of course, it is very disappointing, but sometines this happens in racing. We win together, and we loose together. After that our race was extremely compromised. However, I still tried to do my best and during the rest of the race my pace was good. All in all, we showed a reasonable performance and this is what counts for the next race in Barcelona.’

Felipe Nasr who has scored points in two Grand Prix so far this season in Australia and last time out in China commented following the race saying:

It was a difficult first lap for me as I got squeezed in turn 1, so I lost a few positions. Afterwards I got stuck in traffic which compromised my race pace during the whole first stint. In the course of the race I lost power for several laps, which made us loose ground. On the positive side of things, I was quite satisfied with our lap times on the medium compound. Overall, I think we could have scored points if we would have had a clean race. It is a shame not to have them.

The Sauber F1 Team go into the start of the European leg of the season in 5th place in the championship on 19 points. Speaking following race, Sauber F1 Team Principal Monisha Keltenborn stated:

There is no doubt that today we missed a very realistic chance of finishing in the points, particularly as our lap times were competitive. On Marcus’ car we had a technical issue during his second pitstop, where he lost a lot of time. We are sorry for that. Felipe lost time due to a temporary loss of power. The engineers were able to  fix this after some laps, but the time lost was too big, and so he was also not able to fight for points like his team mate. Both drivers fought impressively, but we didn’t get any rewards today.

The Sauber F1 Team’s Head of Track Engineering stated:

Obviously this is a disappointing result. On Marcus‘ car we had a mechanical issue during his second pitstop when changing the front left wheel, which delayed him by 24 seconds. He was then simply not able  to recover  from this and couldn’t get the points he would have deserved. Felipe was hindered by a temporary loss of power, which was able to be fixed after some laps, but this cost him 12 seconds. Both drivers drove strongly, and it’s just a shame that we were not able to convert that into points.

© Ben Johnston 2015

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