Sauber driver Gabriel Bortoleto struggled with bouncing throughout the F1 Abu Dhabi GP, leaving him with a disappointing P11 in the final race of his debut season.
The Brazilian rookie’s weekend began well with strong free practice results and one of his best qualifying results, claiming P7 just 0.697 seconds off the pole sitter. However, during the race, Bortoleto reported bouncing issues and dropped down the grid.
He was running in the points until Lap 56, when Lance Stroll overtook him to claim P10. Teammate Nico Hülkenberg got him on the final tour as his tyres fell off a cliff on the one-stop in the closing laps. The Brazilian had been running close to Fernando Alonso for a good chunk of the Grand Prix.
Frustration and confusion
In the print media pen, Gabriel Bortoleto discussed the bouncing issue on his Sauber C45, though he was unsure what caused it.
“Well, it was already from lap one, but I didn’t really understand why, and still something to analyse and understand, because yesterday, the whole day, we didn’t have any problem with that in the long run, but today, from the lap to the grid, I was already bouncing like crazy, and I generally don’t understand what happened, and for sure that was very annoying, because in T2 and T3 I was so slow,” Bortoleto admitted.
“Even if it should be an easy flat corner, I was sideways, because I was touching in the middle of the corner and then bouncing, and then arriving in the braking zones and bouncing, so when you hit the brakes, you rear-lock, you front-lock, and it’s a bit of a crazy situation, I don’t really understand why.”
Gabriel Bortoleto noted that he had struggled with bouncing before, but didn’t expect the issue to resurface during the F1 Abu Dhabi GP.
“Well, the first time that it happened, we thought we’d understand why. I think in previous races, we understood that we were taking the risk of going stiff, and then you deal with bouncing, but today, I was very careful in this weekend to have a very solid car in the race, and it’s just completely out of the window.”
Jonathan Wheatley: “Something doesn’t add up”
Team Principal, Jonathan Wheatley, added in a print media session: “Yeah, we need to understand it because he [Bortoleto] was complaining about bouncing and frankly you normally get some indicator of it over the course of the weekend, it might be something you need to address.”
Bortoleto had a solid weekend before the race, finishing FP1 in 7th, FP2 in 6th, FP3 in 11th, and securing P7 in qualifying. The results did not suggest any problems, making this sudden issue something the team is keen to investigate.
“We’re stripping the car now, we need to try to understand what happened, but we suspect something’s happened to the car. I don’t want to speculate, but I mean sometimes it’s a heat damper, sometimes it’s something like that. Something doesn’t add up,” he concluded.
