Sauber (Stake F1 Team) missed out on a place in Q2 by the slimmest of margins in the qualifying session for the Formula 1 Miami GP, with Valtteri Bottas finishing 0.010s off Fernando Alonso’s time limit, setting the 16th fastest time in the series. session. In a tricky session at the unforgiving Miami International Speedway, teammate Zhou Guanyu had his final attempt ruined by traffic and was 20th at the end of Q1. He will start in 19th place tomorrow, due to a grid penalty for Daniel Ricciardo.
Alessandro Bravi, team principal: “We enjoyed the Sprint race positively today as we improved the balance of the car and took a good step forward compared to the start of the weekend. The team managed to resolve the lack of pace in the low speed corners we saw yesterday, and although it is difficult to overtake in a Sprint race as it is common to get stuck in a DRS train, we saw that our race pace allowed both drivers to fight with your direct competitors. Zhou managed to stay ahead of George Russell throughout the race without facing any particular threat from the Mercedes driver. The qualifying session proved to be more difficult for us today, although the car balance was good, both drivers faced a lot of traffic on the final lap in sector 1, which prevented them from progressing into Q2. However, we remain positive about the balance of our car and the behavior of the tires and we start with the determination to fight for points”, he concluded.
Bottas: “Nothing happened to us during the Sprint this morning. I got stuck in a DRS train right after the start and that didn’t leave much room to progress through the laps. We use the Sprint to maximize our learning in terms of adjustment, to be prepared for the qualifying session and the GP. The resulting tuning change made a difference and the car definitely behaved much better this afternoon. We had a clean first lap, but unfortunately we were unlucky once again with some traffic on the second lap. Still, we’ve made a decent improvement over the weekend so far and came very close to the limit in Q2, only missing out by a hundredth. In short, we still have a lot to play for in the race and our pace was decent, and I’m sure that, with a strong start and a good strategy, we can put ourselves in contention for points”, he added.
Zhou: “The Sprint race was pretty smooth for me. Starting 17th meant I was stuck in a DRS train where it was very difficult to overtake, but we managed to make the most of others’ mistakes. However, we saw promising progress compared to where we started the weekend in terms of race pace. This afternoon, unfortunately, the qualifying session ended earlier than we expected, leaving me at the back of the grid for Sunday’s race. I was unable to complete my last lap with many cars trying to protect their positions, and I even had to stay side by side with Oscar (Piastri) in turn one, which cost me valuable time. If we had managed a clean final lap, we could have been able to fight for Q2. Although the pace for single laps was not there, the team will continue to work hard and I am sure that our race pace will allow us to recover some positions during the GP on Sunday, where fans will see some exciting overtakes.”
F1MANIA.NET follows the Miami GP ‘in loco’ with journalists Victor D. Berto and Rodrigo França.
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