The Sauber team was unable to earn any points on the Japanese circuit, although Valtteri Bottas hoped before the start that he would get such an opportunity. His Chinese teammate retired due to transmission problems.
Valtteri Bottas (14th): “Overall our pace today was at a good level, which is positive. This pace should have allowed us to finish in higher positions, and this confirms that we have taken a step forward thanks to the technical innovations that we continue to prepare, and in general all the work of the team aimed at increasing the chassis efficiency.
Unfortunately, we lost the opportunity to earn points when traffic hindered us after the second pit stop. We pulled into the pits with a group of other cars, and not only was the pit stop not the shortest, but when I returned to the track I was stuck behind Kevin Magnussen’s Haas, who I had to follow to the finish.
Of course I’m angry, because today we could have achieved more. And yet our pace is encouraging, progress is clear. We can hope that we can perform better in Shanghai. The priorities remain the same: to be able to fight for points with such a density of results, the entire team must work more consistently.”
Guanyu Zhou (meeting): “The weekend was not easy for me. Unfortunately, during all his days we were hampered by several little things, starting with the fact that yesterday during the third training session I lost time, and this affected my qualifications. And today I dropped out of the race, although the pace allowed me to regain positions.
I got off to a good start and did well in the first few laps before we noticed transmission problems and had to stop. Obviously this is not the start to the season I was hoping for, but we will continue to work on the aspects that need improvement.
Now I will fully concentrate on preparing for my first home Grand Prix. Together with the team we will analyze our problems and work to eliminate them in order to compete for higher positions in China – both in the sprint on Saturday and in the race on Sunday.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
