F1 | Sauber towards Jeddah: good pace, qualifying needs to be improved

The Bahrain Grand Prix represented the first event for Sauber under the new identity Stake, a sponsor which this year has assumed the role of main partner by renaming the team. Even though the team returned home with zero points on the scoreboard, on the other hand the final result brought great confidence within the team, aware of both their strengths and the limitations shown to Sakhir.

The C45 was in fact the protagonist of a negative qualifying, which ended with both drivers excluded in Q1 together with Logan Sargeant and the Alpine pair, in serious difficulty in the stage overlooking the Persian Gulf. However, in the race the qualities in terms of tire management of the Swiss single-seater emerged: after a good start with a nice entry into turn one, Zhou quickly managed to get back into the upper area of ​​the midfield, then following a very aggressive strategy to resist their opponents to jump the DRS train that had formed at the start of the race, when the group was still quite compact.

The Chinese driver was among the first to stop for the second stop, after just 28 laps, which left him with almost 30 laps to go in the final stint. Thanks to a limited degradation on the C1 and the various duels behind him, Zhou was able to contain his opponents' comeback, finishing eleventh. On the other hand, however, Valtteri Bottas' weekend was more complicated, never really in the game and forced into a long pit stop after a problem with a stripped nut during the pit stop: nevertheless, his pace in clean air showed convincing indications, so much so that he surprised the Finn himself at the end of the race. The damage to the front in the endplate area suffered in the first laps was considered minimal and not that influential.

Realistically, without the contact at the start, Nico Hulkenberg would have been able to fight for the points. Furthermore, it is important to underline that Bahrain has been a track favorable to the characteristics of the Swiss team's single-seaters in the last two years, given the many slow corners and the lack of fast corners which, on several occasions, had put the team in crisis in the last two seasons. While it is true that there are elements to take into consideration, Sauber looks at the glass half full.

For this reason, Jeddah will represent a very important challenge after a route considered favorable like that of Sakhir. The Saudi Arabian track has many medium and high speed areas, with rapid changes of direction and long straights on which the peaks at the end of the straights will also count, another aspect in which the C44 had shown some shortcomings in the past.

Qualification will thus become fundamental. Although Bahrain is a circuit that tends to favor overtaking, thanks to long consecutive DRS sections, already in the opening race the drivers were able to notice how this year it is even more complex to remain in the dirty slipstream of another car, with the risk of damaging the tires. In Jeddah this aspect will be even more pronounced, because with so many fast corners, especially in the first sector, staying in the slipstream of another car shouldn't be easy, making the role of qualifying even more central.

The C45 seems to be a car capable of providing some satisfaction with a full tank, while with less petrol there is still something to fix, especially in terms of mechanical optimization, given that this year it has focused on a new suspension scheme. Furthermore, the low temperatures in qualifying did not help in reaching the correct tire window, an aspect that the new car also carries over from last year, given that the C44 was more comfortable in warmer conditions.

Zhou Guanyu, Team Stake F1 Kick Sauber C44

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

At Sauber they were aware of the difficulties on the flying lap even before the opening GP of the championship, so much so that on the eve of Bahrain both drivers had underlined how important it would be to make progress on this front. A theme also repeated by Zhou approaching the event in Saudi Arabia: “We have seen what we are capable of doing in race conditions, having convincingly been the sixth best team in Bahrain, and we think we can take a further step forward this weekend. We know where we need to improve, both in terms of car and execution.”

“Our single lap performances need to be better, as higher grid positions would allow us to be in the thick of the battle for the final points positions right from the start of the race. We need to continue working to perfect the car set-up to extract its full potential”, explained the Chinese driver ahead of Jeddah, where temperatures are also expected to be higher than those in Bahrain.