Monaco Grand Prix 2024 – Sunday report
Stake F1 Team KICK Sauber made up ground, but ultimately couldn’t score points, in a tight Monaco Grand Prix that did not see any shaking up of the qualifying order. Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu, starting from the second-last row, kept their noses clean during the first lap, which was halted by a red flag. In the subsequent restart, the team implemented an aggressive strategy with Valtteri, but the lack of any other incidents – no Safety Cars, no different pit-stop strategies – meant the possible progress was limited, and our duo ended their otherwise flawless races in P13 with Valtteri and P16 with Zhou.
Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Team Representative: “Today was a processionary race with a red flag after lap one, where all drivers except Sargeant decided to change their tyres – ultimately resulting in no more pit stops being expected. We tried our best to allow our drivers to attack the cars in front of them, but at a track like Monaco, where overtaking possibilities are close to zero, positions for most of the field were locked in. We tried a different strategy with Valtteri, who drove an aggressive race, as we pitted him on lap 15 from the medium compound to hard tyres, which allowed him to have a strong pace and overtake Sargeant to secure P13 – the maximum for today. Zhou experienced a more difficult race: he was stuck behind Sargeant until we decided to have him swap position with Valtteri. During the last segment of the race, he lost his position to the Williams under blue flags, before we pitted him onto the soft compound in case of a late Safety Car that didn’t happen. On a positive note: all three of our pit-stops today have been our fastest during the entire season so far. They were fast and consistent – something important as it shows that we can react and improve. Our most important target for the upcoming races is to improve in each and every area to bring us back into the fight for points.”
Valtteri Bottas (car number 77):
Stake F1 Team KICK Sauber C44 (Chassis 03/Ferrari)
Race result: 13th
Fastest lap: 1:16.561 (Lap 17)
Strategy & Pit Stops: Start (New Hard) – Lap 1 (New Medium) – Lap 15 (Used Hard)
“I spent most of the race stuck in a train, which definitely wasn’t that fun – if anything, it was pretty slow. Everyone knows how difficult is to overtake around here – we tried to take some opportunities by starting with the hardest compound, but we weren’t lucky with it because of the red flag, while everyone who was on a softer tyre benefitted from it. Still, I had a clean race despite everything, both starts were decent, and I managed to make up a few places – overall, our pace was okay in clean air. Of course, qualifying is decisive here, and we had a tough time yesterday, lacking one-lap pace; normally, though, Monaco is an outlier, and we still learned lots from this weekend, which will be useful as we prepare to get back racing in Montreal in two weeks’ time.”
Zhou Guanyu (car number 24):
Stake F1 Team KICK Sauber C44 (Chassis 04/Ferrari)
Race result: 16th
Fastest lap: 1:14.718 (Lap 75)
Strategy & Pit Stops: Start (New Medium) – Lap 1 (New Hard) – Lap 70 (New Soft)
“It’s been a really tame and uneventful afternoon for me. At the first start, I saw the accident with Perez, Magnussen and Hülkenberg just in front of me: it was a sketchy moment and I’m happy to see them all walk away from the shunt. After the restart, everyone got all the way to the end and we were all in the same boat, so there was nothing we could do. Fernando was holding up the whole pack to create a gap for his teammate, which meant we were all in a train with no potential to overtake. Perhaps the race would have been a bit more interesting without the red flag, with different strategies, but it wasn’t the case. Monaco has always been a bit tricky for us, we need to understand why we suffer on layouts like these. We have work to do ahead of us, but we know Montreal will be different.”
