Saturday: Disappointment for Sauber drivers

Sergio Perez – 12th

« I didn’t have any particular problem in my last lap, but it wasn’t going well. Being 12th isn’t too bad and I’m really positive for the race, but my run with new tires today didn’t really work. It’s really a shame because I’m happy with the car and it’s crucial for tomorrow’s race. Compared to this morning, we made some setup changes and it worked.

Kamui Kobayashi – 14th

« In my last lap, when I was on new soft tires, a Force India had a problem in front of me, he made a mistake in turn 10 and it was over for me. It’s really a shame considering our new aero package is working well. We have clearly made progress and the car was definitely good enough for a place in the top 10. In any case, we should be good for the race and dealing with the new super-hard tires should be difficult for everyone. »

James Key

« It’s a bit frustrating for us, and not representative of where we want to be. Like in the last race, we’re going to have to come back a little tomorrow and do something during the race. We made some good changes to the car last night, and Kamui in particular was really happy with the car on new tires this morning. His pace seemed quite good for qualifying, so we didn’t change much for him in the settings.

For Sergio, there was a bit of work to do to improve the balance, but it worked between FP3 and qualifying. FP3 seemed quite good and we were happy with the pace we appeared to have since yesterday, so attempting Q3 seemed possible. We only did one run on soft tires in Q1. Then, we did a quick lap on used tires in Q1, followed by just one lap on new tires at the end of the session. Unfortunately, Sergio was a bit short for the top 10, while Kamui was hindered by a faster car halfway through the lap, so he lost time and couldn’t do better than 14th, which was achieved on used tires.