The Monaco Grand Prix once again brought no points for Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou. They finished in 13th and 16th place – a huge disappointment in a race in which only 16 cars finished. Sauber was therefore the only team without any points after the eighth race of the season, in last place in the World Championship table. In the narrow streets of the principality, both cars had no chance and were the neon green rear-end team. A weekend to forget for the Swiss.
Cornerstone of the Monaco race: Qualifying
In a Formula 1 race in which the top ten on the grid cross the finish line without changing position, qualifying on Saturday is the key to success in Sunday’s race. Bottas also recognized this: “Everyone knows how difficult it is to overtake here. Of course, qualifying is crucial here and we had a tough day yesterday because we lacked the pace for one lap. That’s something we really need to understand.”
Sauber’s pace was nowhere on Saturday. What problems were responsible for Bottas and Zhou’s qualifying disaster? In this article, we’ll look for the team’s biggest problems on qualifying day:
The most important element that can bring some excitement to the procession through Monte Carlo on Sunday is the pit stop. Accordingly, Sauber put all its hopes in the tire strategy and wanted to exploit opportunities: “We did our best to give our drivers the opportunity to attack the cars in front of them, but on a track like Monaco, where there are almost no overtaking opportunities, the positions for the majority of the field were fixed,” said team boss Alessandro Alunni Bravi.
First the red flag, then Alonso: Sauber strategy collapsed
All strategic considerations were suspended after the red flag interruption, which was the result of the accident involving Sergio Perez, Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hülkenberg on the first lap. “To be honest, we had a pretty cool strategy until the red flag came out. Then everyone was in the same boat. Maybe the race would have been a bit more interesting without the red flag, with different strategies, but that wasn’t the case,” Zhou regretted.
The Chinese driver experienced the collision up close after a miserable start that saw him fall to the back of the field. “At the first start, I experienced the accident with Perez, Magnussen and Hülkenberg right in front of me. It was a tricky moment,” said Zhou. He had to carefully work his way through the debris from Perez’s Red Bull car on the starting lap.
Bottas, who started well on the hard tires, saw the early red flag phase as a decisive disadvantage for himself: “We weren’t so lucky with the starting tires because of the red flag. I think that everyone who started on the softer tire compound benefited from that.” Because while those drivers who started on mediums were able to switch to hards after lap 1 and finish the race without any problems while saving their tires, the Finn had to swap the hards for mediums in order to fulfill the obligation to drive with two different tire compounds.
The only option left for Sauber with Bottas: “We tried a different strategy with Valtteri, who was driving an aggressive race. On lap 15 we switched from the medium compound to the hard tyres, which allowed him to set a strong pace and overtake Sargeant to secure P13 – the maximum for today,” explained Bravi.
Zhou had a much more difficult race, first getting stuck in traffic, then having to swap positions with Bottas and losing P15 to Sargeant in the closing stages. “We tried to drive to the end, but then unfortunately my tires were dead 15 laps before the end, so I had to decide on another stop,” Zhou said. He was the only one of the drivers who switched to fresh hard tires for the second lap, but was still unable to finish the race without another pit stop.
During the race, both Sauber drivers faced another problem called Fernando Alonso literally got in the way. “Fernando held up the whole pack to create a gap for his teammate’s pit stop, which meant we were all stuck in a slow train with no way to overtake,” said Zhou. Bottas agreed: “Most of it was destroyed by the train led by Alonso, which wasn’t so fun in the end. It was very slow. But, I mean, what can you do?”
Two accidents on the starting lap, then a 77-lap procession with a new, beaming Monaco winner as the crowning conclusion. Christian takes a closer look at the highlight moments of the Formula 1 GP in Monaco for you in this video:
Sauber without points: Next chance Canada?
“Monaco has always been a bit difficult for us,” Zhou said, and gave himself and his team a task: “We have to understand why we suffer on such tracks.” The new parts on the rear wing, beam wing and front suspension that Sauber installed especially for Monaco were apparently unable to counteract this suffering.
“Normally Monaco is a bit of an outlier, so it doesn’t tell the whole story. At least we learned from this weekend – especially about qualifying. That will be useful to us as we prepare for the next race in Montreal in two weeks,” said Bottas, drawing new hope after another points failure in Monaco.
The same optimism can be felt in Zhou: “I’m sure that the conditions in Montreal are completely different. It’s a more usual track. But it’s clear that we still have to improve a bit and find those few tenths that we’re missing from the others.”