Sunday: Sauber drivers hoped for more than one point
The Sauber drivers started 3rd and 8th on the grid in China, and they expected to score big points, but that was not the case due to a few minor issues. Kamui Kobayashi, who started 3rd, eventually finished 10th and scored one point. Sergio Pérez finished just outside the points, but the Mexican is already thinking about the next race in Bahrain where he hopes to do better.
Kamui Kobayashi – 10th
«Obviously, after what we achieved in qualifying, the race result is disappointing. I’m not too sure what happened at the start, my car just didn’t move, it was strange and I immediately lost places. Then, I often found myself stuck in traffic, we also made our second stop a bit late and my tires were dead. Quite often, we managed to have a good race after a disappointing qualifying session, but today it was the opposite. So we proved that we could be strong both in qualifying and in the race, and next time we will have to do both in succession.»
Sergio Pérez – 11th
I must say I’m really very disappointed. I got off to a good start, and throughout the first stint, everything seemed to be going well for me. But then when I switched to Medium tires, I lost a lot of performance starting from lap 17. Actually, I think it would have been better to stick to a three-stop strategy, but you never know. The pit stops were good, but each time I lost time upon restart due to the clutch. But that’s racing, and we’ll do better next time.