The Kick Sauber Ferrari team suffered another complicated weekend in the Saudi Arabian GP, with neither Gabriel Bortoleto nor Nico Hülkenberg scoring a point. The Sauber team is presently at the bottom of the Constructors championship standings. While Hülkenberg has encountered difficulties, he now stands 12th in the standings whereas rookie Bortoleto in 20th in the drivers’ standings.
The former F3 and F2 Champion got off to a shaky start in the Saudi Arabian GP. He stood at the bottom of the timesheets in FP1 and FP3 while not even taking part in FP2 owing to a fuel leak. Bortoleto’s Qualifying pace in the Sauber did not improve and he started 20th on the grid in the Saudi Arabian GP. He managed to clinch on to 18th as Gasly and Tsunoda did not finish the race.
A poor tyre strategy for Bortoleto
The Brazilian driver had few options in terms of tyres to use for the race in the Saudi Arabian GP after missing FP2 and choices the Sauber team made in the Qualifying session, he explained to the media after the race.
“In my case, I didn’t have any other choice. I had only one because of my FP2 miss and the tyre choice we had for Qualy and etc.
“We had only for the race available one set of new hard and one set of new medium and many softs, but it’s useless to put any softs in this condition because they are going to last like 5 laps, I think.”
As the safety car was quickly brought out in the first lap of the race, Sauber chose to pit Bortoleto and fit his machine with his last remaining hard tyre set. The Brazilian driver therefore had to contend with these until the very last lap. This put immense pressure on the tyres that were highly degraded towards the end of the race, exposed Bortoleto.
“So, I used my medium to start, then I put the hards first push, first lap on the safety car and I needed to stick to that.
“And the tyres were completely gone at the end of the race, there was nothing left of it. I had so much vibration in the tyres, I think if I had 5 more laps they were going to blow up.”
With old and degraded tyres, Bortoleto was unable to fight Jack Doohan overtaking him in the Alpine in the final corner benefiting from DRS.
“He overtook me in a straight, DRS, out of last corner. I think he had much fresher tyres as well.”
A close call with his manager
“I tried to make him a bit scared”, joked Bortoleto about nearly crashing into his manager Fernando Alonso on lap 25. Bortoleto further claimed that he was unaware any car was behind him after having been overtaken by another vehicle: “I think I didn’t see him because I just understood there was one car behind me.”
“So as soon as the car behind me overtook me, I tried to open the corner and Fernando was there.”
Bortoleto continued laughing off the close call: “So, I just felt a big hit in the lateral side of my car, and I saw Fernando and I was like, hello!”. He later expressed relief as he reflected on the mishap: “And luckily no incidents, no damage for anyone.”
While Nico Hülkenberg stands ahead of his teammate 12th in the drivers’ standings, his performance in the Saubi Arabian GP was no more brilliant.
A split strategy for the Sauber team
Hoping to optimize their performance in the Saudi Arabian GP, Sauber purposefully kept Hülkenberg out on hard tyres for 33 laps. Unfortunately, the lack of clean air, poor balance and high tyre degradation prevented any good results explained the German driver.
“You have to cover all the bases with both cars from the back, and that’s what we tried and split the cars.
“I think ultimately, obviously, starting from the back is always difficult, then it makes life much harder. But, yeah, I also feel, you know, balance is not that great, and, you know, too much tyre deg.”
He continued that it was a “difficult race”.
Next steps for Sauber according to Hülkenberg
Hülkenberg acknowledged that the team and drivers all have to improve performance, reflecting on the first five races of the season.
“We’ve got work to do, I think that’s pretty clear. But, you know, like many others. But, yeah, lots of stuff to review now.”
The 37-year-old is hoping to get a fresh start in the upcoming Miami race after a short recess.
“It’s good to get a bit of a breather now, one week, and, yeah, start again fresh in Miami.”
