F1 | Sauber: it’s not just the pit stop to start growing again

The Imola event is strategic for Sauber. The only team together with Williams to still have zero points in the Constructors’ World Championship, the Hinwil team begins the European season in the hope of turning a corner in the championship which certainly did not start in the best way due to errors and reliability problems.

For the first time this season, Audi top management will also appear in the paddock with Oliver Hoffmann, general manager of the Formula 1 program together with the CEO, Andreas Seidl, a sign that perhaps there will be an acceleration in the choices of the driver market, after the formalization of Nico Hulkenberg.

But Imola is also important from a technical point of view because the Swiss team has planned an evolutionary plan that will lead to showing innovations at every GP up to Budapest, with a gradual but continuous improvement plan, which begins with the adoption of a new bottom on the Santerno track and a front wing that adopts two small horizontal fins in the delicate area between the side bulkhead and the flaps.

Sauber C44: two horizontal flaps can be seen inside the side bulkhead.

Picture of: Giorgio Piola

In reality, the real starting point concerns the introduction of the revised pit stop system, after the problems that emerged at the beginning of the season. Talking about replacing the nuts would be simplistic, because the entire system was revised after the adoption of Paoli’s Hurricane screwdrivers which replaced those of the previous generation in use by the team for years and which can ensure a decidedly greater tightening torque.

At the start of the championship, the problem at the pit stop emerged in all its severity, which had never emerged in the winter tests: the indoor simulations were done by pushing the car so that the expansion of the metals due to the heat inside the tires did not appear. corners generated by the braking system.

The technical staff led by James Key had to review the tolerances of the materials to temperature variations to find the ideal coupling of the screwdriver with the nut without it being possible to strip when applying the torque. Since the processing of the new parts was entrusted to an external supplier (who works for everyone…) it took time to create the new parts, while the changes were redesigned very quickly, because the interventions to be carried out were identified immediately .

Valtteri Bottas, Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber C44, during a pit stop

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

In the meantime, Sauber has adopted a functional strategy for carrying out pit stops: after having paid for stops lasting around 40-50 seconds, it has studied a way to prevent the tightening problem from occurring again. The drivers, Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou, were invited to arrive at the pit stop with the car in neutral to avoid possible mechanical stress.

In this way the team managed to stabilize its stops in a time around four seconds. Nothing competitive, but useful for building a race strategy. Sauber, therefore, has the ambition of raising its head again starting from Imola: until now the real potential of the car has never been seen. At the debut in Europe the scenario should change: in this “waiting” phase the team has refined “aggressive” strategies with softer compound tyres. So far, between errors and problems, the effect has never been seen. We’ll see if the music is destined to change…