Saturday: Objective achieved for Kobayashi and Sauber
The Sauber team hoped to place both of its cars in Q3; while Kamui Kobayashi succeeded, Sergio Pérez did not as he struggled in qualifying. However, the Mexican driver remains confident about his chances of moving up during the race tomorrow.
Kamui Kobayashi – 11th and 7th
I’m happy with the car and the result – the team did a very good job. The lap times are very close. If you make the slightest mistake, you end up far behind. My lap was good and I think the maximum I could have done was a tenth better, but no more. It was worth giving it all in Q3 as we managed to place three cars behind us. We tried to adapt to the heat here and we did a good job on that front. One of our objectives was to improve in qualifying, and we achieved that today. Now, we need to maintain our momentum and perform well in the race, and I am confident we can do it.
Sergio Pérez – 6th and 15th
Obviously, I’m disappointed with my qualifying performance, but I have every reason to be confident because we’ve made changes to the car for the race that didn’t help us this afternoon. I think it will pay off on the long stints. For me, the car’s balance wasn’t good during this qualifying session, the car was a bit unpredictable. For the race, I hope we can have a good pace with a solid strategy. We need to adopt an aggressive strategy, and we’ve proven that we can do it.
