Sauber sees first signs of progress
Date published : 27 Mar 2010 - 09:07:39
Sauber drivers Pedro de la Rosa and Kamui Kobayashi believe the team has made a step forward with its disappointing C29 chassis, despite qualifying no higher than it did for the Bahrain season-opener two weeks ago.
Just as they did at Sakhir, de la Rosa and Kobayashi claimed 14th and 16th spots on the grid respectively but were 1.6s rather than 2.3s off the Q2 benchmark time, albeit on a shorter circuit.
That remains a far cry from the sort of form the car showed in pre-season testing, but de la Rosa took a few crumbs of comfort from the smaller deficit.
We are still a step away from Q3 but we were closer than in Bahrain, said the Spaniard.
We will keep working hard and further improve the car for the future, and tomorrow we will go and fight for points.
This is what I really want to finish a good race and score.
I was pushing hard in qualifying and basically I'm happy with my fastest lap.
Kobayashi set a near-identical time to his veteran team-mate but achieved it in rather more spectacular fashion, only just collecting a lurid fishtailing slide out of the last corner on his final hot lap.
I expected to finish qualifying a bit higher up because the speed in the third free practice was encouraging, he said.
I pushed very hard and nearly lost the car, but we didn't make it into Q3.
Nevertheless we definitely improved compared to Bahrain.
Although the positions are the same the gap is smaller. I'm quite confident for the race.
Technical director Willy Rampf said it was quite disappointing to remain mired in such lowly grid positions, but added: On the positive side, the balance of the car was definitely better here than in Bahrain, but we have to further improve the overall performance.
Team boss Peter Sauber gave a blunter verdict.
P14 and P16 in qualifying don't meet our expectations, therefore we cannot be satisfied, he said.
I think that today we didn't really exploit the full potential of the car.
