The first 18 drivers were separated by just 0.568 seconds in the Formula 1 qualifying in Monaco. These 18 included nine teams. Not Sauber. Not Sauber at all. Valtteri Bottas was an incredible 0.452 seconds behind in even catching up with P18 and the rest of the F1 world. Zhou Guanyu was another 0.516 seconds behind. Monaco is completely out of control for the Hinwil team.
The first bad signs were already there in training. Zhou broke his front wing on Friday in Ste. Devote, Bottas broke his suspension in the swimming pool on Saturday in FP3. The last bit of optimism died when things got serious in Q1. And with extra bad news: There are no external influences like traffic that can explain the gigantic gap.
Bottas bad, Zhou worse: disaster in qualifying
“We don’t have any answers at the moment,” Bottas said resignedly. “We’re struggling on one lap, we don’t seem to be able to get the most out of it. No idea why. There are no clear limitations in terms of balance. The car felt pretty good over one lap. We just can’t take as much speed into the corners as the competition.”
If the drivers try anyway, the car resists vehemently. It is also not surprising that Zhou sees an additional half a second from Bottas as a personal failure. Monaco is his nightmare track, his qualifying results: P20, P19, P20. He has never managed to reduce his deficit to Bottas to less than half a second.
A bad car only makes the problems worse: “Of course we seemed to lack balance in a few corners, but the problem was the sliding across all four tires. It just didn’t have the physical grip that others had.” This meant that he had no confidence in the car, especially here in the guardrail channel, where this confidence is the all-important factor.
What’s going wrong here? Sauber in Monaco without a plan after qualifying
Now an urgent investigation into the cause begins. The team had introduced several updates in the last few races and, like everyone else, in Monaco they finally introduced a new high-downforce wing that is only needed for particularly slow tracks.
The special thing about the Sauber wing, however, is that it changes the concept when it comes to fastening it. Even if the drivers cannot imagine that this detail alone can be to blame. “I really hope that this is an isolated case,” said Bottas. “It’s not like we’ve changed the car massively.” It shouldn’t be due to the many bumps here either; the driving quality is good. Unlike Red Bull, for example:
“We can’t generate any downforce here,” Bottas finally states. Conclusion: There must be something wrong with the high downforce setup somewhere. Perhaps it’s the suspension setup anyway: “The vehicle height is always a compromise on tracks like this. I don’t know if we’re more susceptible to that than others.”
Sauber boss sounds the alarm: react, don’t analyse
The plan is to change the setup overnight. Starting from the pits wouldn’t be the end of the world, after all, things can’t get any worse. And overtaking is hardly possible in Monaco anyway. Team representative In view of the situation, Alessandro Alunni Bravi makes a clear demand: “Today is not the time to analyse, but to react.”
“What we can do is react and prove that we can turn the page and improve even in difficult times,” demands Alunni Bravi. Of course, we cannot avoid the analyses, but the first conclusion is already clear: “We saw that we lack performance overall, but there is no single element that creates performance in a team. We understand that we have to take a step in every single area.”
“And we know that the most important thing is that every member of our team puts in the effort and doesn’t give up,” says Alunni Bravi, trying to motivate them. The reality remains: Sauber is the only team without any points, along with Williams. And the latter have a driver in tenth place on the grid, Alex Albon, and thus with one hand on the counter.