Gutiérrez: Sauber is at an impasse
Esteban Gutiérrez is rather pessimistic about the rest of the season and thinks that Sauber will have a hard time making progress. A glaring lack of financial resources and the impossibility of progressing on the engine side are the main causes of this lack of performance.
The Sauber team is currently the only team alongside Caterham not to have scored a single point since the start of the season. An unprecedented and embarrassing situation for the Swiss team, which seems to be struggling to find solutions to break out of this negative spiral.
Esteban Gutiérrez, who is racing for Sauber in his second season in Formula 1, believes that the lack of financial resources is the main cause of this lack of progress: « I think the explanation is quite simple. We don’t have enough downforce on the car and, on the engine side, we can’t change anything because of the new regulations. We cannot develop this area. »
Indeed, Sauber is powered by a Ferrari power unit that turns out to be much heavier than the Mercedes. In fact, the Scuderia also encounters many problems in compensating for this excess weight on the engine side.
« Of course, on the side of the single-seater itself, we are a small team and we don’t have the budget of the big teams to change certain things, » continues Gutiérrez for Autosport. « We are taking quite a few risks at the moment, and we are exploring multiple solutions, taking different approaches because for now, we are stuck with this car. »
Last year, after a disastrous start to the season, Sauber managed to turn things around by regularly finishing in the points from mid-season onwards, often thanks to exploits from Nico Hülkenberg, who has now moved to Force India, where he is the only driver along with Fernando Alonso to have finished all races in the points. But despite this recent example, Gutiérrez does not think that this situation can be repeated this year: « I do not think this scenario will repeat because last year was a bit of a peculiar year. The tires changed mid-season, and we found something a bit unusual… but this year, that’s not really the case. »
The Mexican driver seems resigned and only hopes that the situation will improve with hard work and involvement: « We need to be honest with ourselves and understand that the situation will not improve by sitting back and simply hoping that things will change. Last year, we weren’t bad in fast corners, so when we arrived at a high-speed track, we knew it was an opportunity for us. This year, the car is quite weak in all areas. I have to say that, for now, I don’t see how it could be worse. »
