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| After a fair amount of technical problems at the United States Grand Prix Sauber F1 team reviews their performance |
After starting the race from 15th and 16th respectively, Sergio Pérez and Kamui
Kobayashi took the chequered flag at the inaugural Grand Prix of the United States in
Austin in 11th and 14th. Both started on the medium compound tyres and only stopped once.
After a fantastic start and strong early laps Sergio lost performance due to a brake
problem. Kamui pitted early, at the end of lap 13, to change to hard tyres and
couldn’t find grip with either of the compounds.
Sergio Pérez: 11th
Sauber C31-Ferrari (Chassis 03/Ferrari 056)
My start worked really well and the first laps were good too. I had a good pace, and
the car was really quick, but then around lap ten I had a problem with the brakes. The
pedal became very long and I had big difficulties before every corner. This cost a lot of
time and so we didn’t manage to get any points here. Regardless of the result it was
a great experience to race here in front of so many Mexicans. The COTA is a great track
and I hope we can have this Grand Prix on the calendar for many years. Now we will get
ourselves together for the final attempt to improve to fifth place in the
Constructors’ World Championship next week.
Kamui Kobayashi: 14th
Sauber C31-Ferrari (Chassis 04/Ferrari 056)
For the entire weekend here I had warm up problems and didn’t get the tyres to
work. We have to find out why this was. The grip level only increased in the last laps of
the race at the end of a very long stint with the hard tyres. This was crazy and I do hope
very much we are stronger in Sao Paulo to finish the season on a high.
Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal:
For our team it was a weekend with ups and downs, which was also reflected in the race.
Sergio made a very good start and was 11th after lap one, with a chance to fight for
points, but later he reported a brake problem and, as a result, lost positions. Kamui was
never able to recover from his grid position. We have not given up the fight for P5 in the
constructors’ championship, but we will have a lot of pressure in Interlagos.
However, we are taking this as an extra motivation. Congratulations to the people
responsible at the COTA for building a great track and organising a great event for the
many fans who were present today.
Giampaolo Dall’Ara, Head of Track Engineering:
This was a fairly difficult weekend for us. For some reason we were not able to exploit
the potential which was there. Our main problem was to get the tyres to work, which was
reflected in our qualifying performance. With Kamui we opted for an early pit stop, but we
didn’t benefit from that. Sergio had a very good first lap and therefore we went for
a more standard strategy, but then he reported a long brake pedal. We spotted a problem,
but we were confident on the safety side, because the travel soon stabilised. However, on
the performance side we had to pay the price, particularly around the pit stop where we
lost two positions to the Williams. We couldn’t regain these positions.
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