Sauber drivers Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou completed the battle in the first part of qualifying for the sprint in Spielberg, posting the eighteenth and twentieth fastest times respectively. The team stated that the car did not have enough speed in one lap to qualify for higher starting positions.
Valtteri Bottas (18th): “The car left a good impression, so I expected slightly higher lap times. I completed two laps cleanly, although the result of the second was removed for exceeding the boundaries of the track. However, this had virtually no effect, as that lap turned out to be only two-hundredths of a second faster.
Unfortunately we still lack speed during a fast lap. The sprint will be difficult because we have to start at the back of the peloton, especially given the short distance and the lack of pit stops, but then we will have the opportunity to change the settings.
In the sprint we will try to gather as much information as possible to improve in the main qualifying and in the race on Sunday.”
Guanyu Zhou (20th): “In the morning training we collected certain information and data and qualifying for the sprint was quite chaotic for me. I only completed two laps. During the first I went into the gravel, and during the second I was hindered by heavy traffic. As a result, the tires turned out to be unusable after the first attempt and this was difficult to prove at any time.
However, if we talk about Saturday, we should have a higher pace, so we should perform better than today. Now all attention is on a good qualifying.”
Source: F1 News

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