Guanyu Zhou: Everything will be different in Montreal

After the Monaco Grand Prix, Sauber remained the only team without points this season. Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou finished thirteenth and sixteenth respectively, but expressed confidence that the result would be different in the next round in Canada.

Valtteri Bottas (13th): “I spent most of the race in a ‘train’ of cars. Not only was it not fun, but it was also quite slow. Everyone knows how difficult it is to overtake in Monaco. We decided to try something, so I started on the hard tires, but we were unlucky with the red flags: everyone on the softer tires got an advantage by stopping the race.

Despite everything, I rode a flawless race. Both starts were good, I gained a few positions and the race pace on an empty track was fine. Of course qualifying is crucial in Monaco and on Saturday we struggled because the car doesn’t have enough speed on a fast lap.

Usually the Monaco stage is separate, and we learned a lot this weekend. The information received will be useful in the preparation of the Montreal stage, which will take place in two weeks.”

Guanyu Zhou (16th): “My day turned out to be boring. At the start I witnessed a collision between Perez, Magnussen and Hulkenberg – everything happened right in front of me. I’m glad they left the cars alone after such a blow.

After the restart everyone tried to cross the finish line – everyone was on equal footing and we couldn’t do anything. Fernando Alonso held back a large group of cars so that his teammate could create a gap. The result was that we all drove in a ‘train’ of cars, without any possibility of overtaking.

Perhaps the race would have turned out to be more interesting. Without the red flags we would have seen other strategies, but not today. The Monaco circuit has always been difficult for us. We need to understand why we have problems on these types of tracks.

There is still a lot of work to be done, but the team knows that everything will be different in Montreal.”