Sauber more or less where they expected to be

(Sauber F1 Team)

As the Formula One circus gets ready for its final act in Europe for this season the Sauber F1 Team head into tomorrow's Italian Grand Prix at Monza (their engine supplier Ferrari's home race) in search of their first points of the 2014 campaign.

Adrian Sutil qualified in 15th place but thanks to an engine penalty for Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat the German will start the race from 14th place. Speaking following the session he said:

'It was a solid qualifying without having any issues. After the technical problem we had during the third free practice session, everything went well in qualifying. At the beginning of the session the driveability of the car was difficult, so we made some changes to the tyre pressures and the aerodynamic set-up. 

The balance of the car improved lap by lap, but it took a while in order to feel more confident. With the last lap I am quite satisfied, but the 15th is the maximum at the moment. Tomorrow we have to make the best out of it during the race.'

Esteban Gutierrez was also happy with his solid session which saw the Mexican qualify just behind his team mate in 16th place but he too will also move up place as a result of Kvyat's penalty. Speaking following the session Gutierrez said:

'Overall it was a good qualifying, and we tried to get the most out of the car. A few more tenths would have been possible considering that I made a small mistake on the last lap. I want to thank all the responsible people at Ferrari because they have been fighting hard to get closer to the other engine manufacturers. 

We are working together as a team, and we are making progress. Obviously, we are still missing quite a lot of time to some teams in front of us, but we tried to get the maximum out of the car today.'

Speaking following the session the Swiss based outfits head of track engineering Giampaolo Dall'Ara commented by saying:

'Apart from the hydraulic issue on Adrian’s car that cost us a bit of track time this morning, the day went pretty smoothly. In qualifying our drivers were always at the limit extracting the potential out of the car. 

Esteban might complain about  a mistake in his final lap in the Ascari chicane, but this wouldn’t have changed the big picture. We are more or less were we can be on a high speed track like this. In the race we have to make sure we are ready in case something unexpected happens.'

© Ben Johnston 2014