Sauber head to Singapore in search of their first points following a disappointing race in Italy

(Sauber F1 Team)

The Sauber F1 Team leave Europe for the final six flyaway Grand Prix of the season in search of their first points of the season following a disappointing race at today's Italian Grand Prix at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza where Adrian Sutil finished the race in 15th place. Speaking following the race the German commented:

'It was not a spectacular race for me. We were easily able to finish the race with a one stop strategy. Generally we were too slow today, that is why I could not finish better than 15th. The team worked well and we did not make any mistakes. We still have to continue working on the car in order to improve our performance. It was not an easy race, but we finished it without any incidents.'

Esteban Gutierrez had a difficult day for the Swiss based outfit as the Mexican finished the race in 19th place having started the race from 16th place ahead of the Lotus F1 Team duo of Pastor Maldonado and Romain Grosjean.

The Mexican made three stops, the only driver on the grid to do so and he commented by saying:

'It was a really tough race. From the beginning on I struggled to get the hard tyres to work. We changed the strategy immediately, and I think that was a good decision. Back on track I was able to overtake a few cars, but that was it.

We lost a lot of time with the incident I had towards the end of the race. Now, I need to look forward and concentrate on the next races.'

The Sauber F1 Team have had an extremely difficult season so far in 2014 and team boss Monisha Keltenborn felt the race ended how they expected she said:

'It was a difficult weekend that ended as we expected it would. Under the circumstances the team worked well, even though we have some room for improvement with the consistency of the pit stops. Adrian extracted from the car what was possible today. The contact which Esteban had with a competitor was unnecessary. 

The tracks which are now coming up are less dependent on power, therefore, we hope we can come back to the level of performance we had in Hungary.'

The outfit's head of Track Engineering Giampaolo Dall'Ara commented:

'From the beginning it was clear that under normal circumstances it would be extremely difficult to make up positions. We, therefore, decided to choose a tyre strategy which was meant to give us an advantage if some unexpected things happened. 

However, in the end this didn’t pay off. Esteban struggled to get the hard tyres to work, therefore, we switched to a two-stop strategy. But in the race we were simply not fast enough. It looks as if we are stronger in qualifying, but then are losing ground to our competitors with our race settings. The tracks that are now coming up need less power, which should help us.”

© Ben Johnston 2014