It was a tough day at work to kick off the 2014 season at Albert Park, Melbourne, for the Sauber F1 Team. In the morning the team struggled with technical issues on both Sauber C33-Ferraris. During the second free practise session the drivers were able to work through the planned programme. However, before the first qualifying of the 2014 FIA Formula One World Championship the team still has a lot of work to do.
Esteban Gutiérrez
“Today was not ideal. We had a problem with the gearbox in the morning, but we were able to fix it for the afternoon. The team did a good job putting the gearbox together. In the afternoon we went out pretty late and lost time. However, we managed to do the basic programme which we had planned. But we need to use today’s information in order to keep improving. We are definitely missing a lot of speed and our pace is not where we want it to be. Regarding braking, the track is very bumpy and so it is quite hard and unpredictable in that area. Generally, we haven’t had time to work on the set-up of the car yet, but, considering what we had today, we need to keep working for FP3 and get ready for qualifying tomorrow.”
Adrian Sutil
“It was a difficult day. However, the afternoon was better than the morning. Unfortunately we couldn’t do much in FP1, because a lot of things are not quite the way we want them to be at the moment. I think the tyres are too hard, as it’s a very conservative approach, but I have to deal with that. We have to gain speed and improve our processes. We need to make sure all the simple things that were standard last season are in place and perfect.”
Giampaolo Dall’Ara, Head of Track Engineering
“Overall a difficult day. In the morning we had technical issues with the ERS system on both cars. We had a gearbox failure on Esteban’s car, which cost us a lot of time. Adrian was able to drive, but had some limitations coming from the hybrid system, and the gearbox didn’t work perfectly, which is something we still have to look into. In the afternoon we were more or less able to run through the programme, but it is clear that the performance is not where it should be. So we have a lot of work left for tonight