At Zandvoort, Sauber drivers Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou completed the list, finishing nineteenth and twentieth. Nine stages before the end of the season, the team has not earned any points.
Valtteri Bottas (19th): “This was perhaps our weakest race weekend of the season, and the race confirmed this. I had a good start and was in a good position. In the first laps everything was under control, but I quickly realised that I could not stay behind the cars in front of me. This is the reality: we are not fast enough on the race distance, which led to this result.
I was hoping that things would improve with a different tire compound. We tried them all, but there was no difference. I believe that the characteristics of the track emphasized the weak points of the car. Slope, asphalt, track slope and wind – everything was against us. I understand that we did not take a step back, but we learned a lot this weekend that will be useful in the future, so we learned a lot.
The most important thing is that we will be competing on a completely different type of circuit next week in Monza. I have high expectations for the next race. The team must continue to work hard and attack in order not to lose confidence. There are still many races to go.”
Guanyu Zhou (20th): “It was a difficult weekend for the team. This is not the kind of performance we dreamed of after the summer break. On a dry track we were quite far behind our closest rivals, which affected today’s race.
In any case, it is important to understand why we have such a speed deficit with full tanks, and everything we have done to correct the situation has not worked. The team was ready for a difficult race. In the first lap I had no grip and soon I realized that I could not keep up with the others.
In Monza everything should be better – there is a different type of circuit and the wind will have less influence on our car, which is very sensitive to extreme conditions. We have to keep working in the remaining races of the season.”
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.
