A case of what might have been for the Sauber F1 Team in Austin

(Sauber F1 Team)

The Sauber F1 Team headed into Sunday's United STates Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas in confident mood following the team's best qualifying performance of the 2014 sseason as for the first time all year Adrian Sutil managed to qualify the C33 in the top ten starting the race from ninth place on the grid.

For Sutil however the race would prove to be all too short as on the opening lap of the race the German was forced to retire after a heavy impact from the Sahara Force India of Sergio Perez left the both driver's unable to continue the race, 

The resulting accident brought out the safety car. Speaking following the race a frustrated Sutil said:

'Unfortunately, it was a short race. I had a good start and was in a promising position. Sadly Sergio (Perez) crashed into my car, which was completely needless. It is very disappointing that we missed our biggest chance of points because of this move.'

While Sutil retired from the race his team mate Esteban Gutierrez also endured a difficult race as he finished the event one lap down in 14th place out of 15 runners just ahead of the Toro Rosso of Daniil Kvyat. Speaking following the race the Mexican stated:

'It was challenging to get the tyres to work after the safety car period. We lost quite a lot of time on this run. It is tricky when you have to push every lap of the race. Not being able to manage the tyres as other drivers do put us in a critical situation. I did my best and fought through the whole race. From now on we have to keep our focus on Brazil and Abu Dhabi, where I believe we will get the chance to score points.'

It is a very quick turnaround for the teams as the next race in Brazil is just seven days away so the Swiss based outfit will be hopeful that they will be in a position to challenge for a points finish there as the 2014 Formula One season nears its conclusion. 

Sauber F1 Team principal Monisha Keltenborn stated:

'After the promising qualifying this result is a huge disappointment especially for Adrian, who was forced out of the race through no fault of his own because of another driver. Looking at what happened at the end of the race, the question is what would have been possible today. Esteban, especially during the early race phase, lost a lot of time. We now have to analyse why that was the case.'

The Swiss based outfit's Head of Track Engineering Giampaolo Dall'Ara concluded by saying:

'In the end a number of things went wrong today. Adrian made a good start defending ninth position. It was a good way to get into the race, but then he was taken out by another driver, which was a pity. 

So we had to concentrate on the other car. Being quite far back, we decided to change the strategy, and when the safety car came out at the end of lap one we brought him into the pits and put him on the medium compound tyres, in order to have longer stints in the beginning and a better pace in the end. But, particularly in the first stint, the lap times were not as expected. Overall we were limited by the race pace.'

© Ben Johnston 2014