Sauber and missed pit stops, a situation unworthy of an F1 team

What has been happening at Sauber, and more precisely in the Sauber garages, since the start of the season? In Bahrain, Jeddah and now Melbourne, the Swiss team suffered from the same problem, that is to say, missed and endless pit stops. Enough to destroy any chance of points, even though they are crucial in the fight for the middle of the pack.

As in the first two rounds of the year, Valtteri Bottas et Guanyu-Zhou were the victims of these hellish pit stops, due to problems with the wheel nuts. And if Sauber implemented corrective measures for this Australian weekend, they did not have the desired effect... Result of the races: sad 14th and 15th places, far from the points, with a pit stop of 20 seconds for Zhou and another of… 31 seconds for Bottas! You will have understood, we are far from 2 seconds of Ferrari, McLaren ou Red Bull.

Alessandro Alunni Bravi, the representative of the Swiss team, apologized after the race. “First of all, we have to apologize to our drivers, especially Valtteri [Bottas], who in the first part of the race showed that he could compete with the top ten drivers and that he was fighting clearly for a place in the points, thanks to a good start and a sustained pace, declared the Swiss leader. As we said before the race, we had mitigations in place for our pit stop issue, which improved the situation but, as we saw, did not completely resolve the problem. »

Bottas points out a situation " not acceptable " 

The representative of the Sauber team also explained that the cause of the problem encountered by the Finn is not identical to previous weekends, but which nevertheless has the same consequence... “What happened to Valtteri is a slightly different issue, but related to what happened in Bahrain or Saudi Arabia. A problem for which we paid a very high price and which completely ruined Valtteri's race", regrets Alessandro Alunni Bravi.

To compound Sauber's frustration, stewards fined the team 5 euros for dropping a wheel nut in the pit lane. “As a team, we have to take responsibility when these things happen, concludes Alessandro Alunni Bravi. This is the only way we can improve. »

Valtteri Bottas, for his part, was visibly frustrated at having missed a points finish due to yet another problem in the pits. A situation " not acceptable " according to the Finn. “We know we have work to do on these issues, said the Sauber driver. It's frustrating because I think we had good pace, we had a good start. We should have ideally gotten points today with the performance we had. So it's difficult. Obviously we haven't solved the problem we have yet, so that's what we need to continue working on. »

ALSO READ > With victory in Australia, Carlos Sainz embellishes his CV for 2025