F1 | Sauber: new material to fix the pit stops in Imola

The start of the season hasn’t been easy for Sauber, who are currently still at zero in the standings, but who can complain about a couple of missed opportunities to get into the points, also thanks to the problems during the pit stops.

The causes of these difficulties are mainly linked to the revision of the nut design with lighter materials which, however, did not give the desired results in terms of robustness. In fact, to speed up operations and improve the performance of the cars, behind the scenes the team is continuing to invest, for example also focusing on new equipment to reduce pit stop times, which in recent years have been among the slowest on the grid.

A process of continuous improvement with investments released in view of Audi’s arrival in 2026, but which demonstrates how much the Swiss team is also pushing on secondary details. However, the problem is that the material does not provide the expected robustness values, in particular when temperatures rise during the race, so much so that these difficulties never arose during the tests, in the free trials and in the factory ones, where clearly there is a different context.

A behavior that could be linked to the fact that, in racing conditions, temperatures also rise, transmitting part of the heat generated by the tires and brakes to the pieces, an aspect that is difficult to replicate during static tests in the factory or in free practice.

In the first three races there were numerous problems, such as two pit stops lasting almost 30 seconds each, or the nut that slipped and ended up in the pit lane during a stop in Australia which cost the team a fine. Bottas revealed that the team apologized for the problems: “We’re in this together. I was disappointed, but so was the whole team, because these things shouldn’t happen. So, we’re definitely taking it seriously and now It’s a priority to solve the problem.”

After what happened in the first rounds of the season, the team has made some temporary changes in order to try to keep the situation under control while waiting for a definitive solution which will only arrive during this weekend in Imola. Indeed, Pujolar had confirmed that the parts to be modified came from an external supplier and that, given the design and manufacturing process, including inventories, it would still take some time before seeing a definitive solution.

The hope was that, while making slower and more conservative stops, the problems seen in the first Grands Prix of the year could be avoided, which cost numerous seconds and ruined the chances of being able to fight for a good placing.

Guanyu Zhou, Kick Sauber C44

Photo by: Erik Junius

Indeed, both in Japan, China and the United States, no major problems occurred, but this prudent approach also had its negative side of the coin, given that, for example, in Suzuka due to a relatively slow compared to his rivals Bottas lost three positions during the pit stop, putting him out of the fight for points. Miami, on the other hand, lacked performance, despite a differentiated strategy compared to its opponents which did not pay off given the lack of performance from the single-seater.

Over the course of this weekend, however, like other teams, Sauber will also present itself at Imola with a substantial package of updates, which will also include a (hopefully) definitive solution to the pit stop problems: “We have important updates at Imola. Not only regarding the pitstops, because we will have all the new parts that should definitively solve the problems during the stops”, explained Alessandro Alunni Bravi.

“Then we will have an important update coming to Imola. So I think this will determine the progress of the next three-four races and the possibility for us to get points.”