Sauber enjoyed their best race since the Malaysian Grand Prix and picked up eighteen World Championship points at Hockenheim.
Both cars proved to be quick in race conditions, as Japan's Kamui Kobayashi equalled his best ever result in Formula One, finishing fourth after Sebastian Vettel's penalty.
“I am very happy for the team that we have managed to get a good result again. We have been unlucky in the two most recent races, and also had a bad qualifying yesterday. The performance of our car, especially in the dry, is really strong. If we only had qualified better we could have achieved even more today. At the beginning of the race it was a bit difficult on the medium tyres, but our strategy was good. Considering where we came from, 18 points is an excellent result.”
Meanwhile, Sergio Perez was able to bounce back from a grid penalty to finish sixth. Perez had been given a five place grid penalty for blocking both Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen and lined up seventeenth, but made great progress to finish sixth.
In the last few laps it looked as if the Mexican would come under attack from Michael Schumacher who was on fresher tyres, but just managed to hold him off at the end.
“I am so pleased for all of us that we have recovered after we had such a bad qualifying. We have shown a strong pace in the race. However, my strategy was a little bit compromised because I had to do my first pit stop a bit earlier than planned. I felt something strange on the left hand side of the car – perhaps it was a puncture – but I don't really know yet what it was. This obviously meant we had to extend the later stint and I ended up with quite old tyres. The team did a great job today and this will give us a good boost for next week's race in Budapest.”
““We started from P12 and P17 and finished fifth and sixth. I think it's fair to say this performance was outstanding, and it was rewarded by 18 championship points. Congratulations to the drivers who both did an excellent job, and thank you to the whole team,” team boss Peter Sauber added.
