2024 Spanish Grand Prix- Sunday report

KICK Sauber F1 Team fought fiercely in the Spanish Grand Prix, with Zhou Guanyu pushing to 13th place and Valtteri Bottas crossing the line 16th. Both drivers had solid races after a weekend of progress, with a much improved qualifying performance yesterday that allowed the team to be in the mix for the positions just outside the points.

The impetus of this step forward will need to be harnessed to create the momentum necessary to push into the top ten as the team heads to the next events in this summer triple-header, with the Austrian Grand Prix next weekend and Silverstone in two weeks.

Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Team Representative: “Today’s conditions were a bit of a challenge for all competitors, as the track conditions changed dramatically from Friday, making all references on race simulations moot. Tyre degradation remained a question mark and this created some interesting scenarios for the strategy: we tried our best to support our drivers and allow them to make up ground with two different plans, swapping their places to give them the best fighting chance. However, Valtteri’s second stint on softs saw more degradation than we expected, which meant we had to call him in for an earlier stop, and that made his final stint on hard tyres too long, his race pace on those tyres not allowing him to challenge those on mediums. Zhou, starting in 15th, executed a very good race, and was lapping strongly until the end of the day, even though Alonso turned out too hard to keep behind. We felt we made a step forward in qualifying, but there’s still something to find on Sunday to be as competitive as we need to be to score points, even in a race with no retirements, Safety Cars or anything that reshuffles the pack. Of course, we finished ahead of Williams and RB, but this cannot be our objective: being in the top ten is. We need to keep improving in all fields from Austria already, as there will be opportunities to be taken, and we need to be the ones doing that.”

Valtteri Bottas (car number 77):
KICK Sauber F1 Team C44 (Chassis 03/Ferrari)
Race result: 16th
Fastest lap: 1:19.608 (Lap 13)
Strategy & Pit Stops: Start (New Soft) – Lap 11 (Used Soft) – Lap 28 (New Hard)

“We opted to split strategies today and went for an aggressive one. The feeling on the soft compound was quite okay at first, as we thought that could have been today’s best tyre, but unfortunately that turned out not to be the case, as they quickly began to degrade. We were forced to an early stop, and the last stint ended up being too long – as I also had to do some tyre management and couldn’t make use of our real pace. As a positive to bring home from this weekend, our overall performance this weekend seemed to be in a better place compared to recent events, as seen with Zhou, who ended up in thirteenth place – which is good to see. We made some decent progress this weekend, but we still need to do more. Looking ahead to Austria, the track layout will be different, but we’ll hopefully be able to be in the mix again with a good qualifying performance: it’s going to be a Sprint event, so it’ll be important to get the feeling right from the start.”

Zhou Guanyu (car number 24):
KICK Sauber F1 Team C44 (Chassis 02/Ferrari)
Race result: 13th
Fastest lap: 1:18.771 (Lap 50)
Strategy & Pit Stops: Start (New Soft) – Lap 9 (New Medium) – Lap 41 (New Hard)

“We had a good race today especially compared to the last couple of events. We were quite strong for most of the day – I hadn’t expected to be fighting with the Haas – and the feeling is that we have definitely made a step forward. The only blot is lap one, where I tried to go on the outside to gain some places but nearly lost it on the gravel: still, we were able to recover and I feel that, on a race where everyone finished, P13 was the most we could get. I am happy we made a step forward, it feels like a bit of a breakthrough, not perhaps in terms of results but in terms of feeling with the car: I felt a lot more comfortable; I could put the car where I wanted and control it as I used to. It’s a big step and it gives us all motivation to keep working and closing the gap. Hopefully, we can continue on this trajectory and be back in the points soon. I think we are much closer to where we were at the start of the season, when we were near the top of the midfield, so I’ll be looking forward to being back on track in Austria.”