The Sauber F1 Team experienced a mixed day yesterday in Montreal, with drivers Esteban Gutierrez and Adrian Sutil setting plenty of mileage around the Circuit Île Notre-Dame/Gilles Villeneuve.
For Gutierrez it was a tough day, with the Mexican losing around half an hour in the morning with an ECU issue, with his C33 then suffering balance issues in the afternoon sessions, although the #21 still managed a total of 58 laps across the day.
“It’s been a tough day,” said ‘Guti.’ “We had some technical problems this morning, which is not ideal because we lost valuable track time. This afternoon we managed to solve the issues we had in the morning, but I’m still not completely happy with the car’s overall handling.
“But we have good information in order to put everything together for tomorrow, which is pretty important so that I can feel confident with the car and drive it to the limit. The whole driveability into the corners is quite tricky, and the car is snappy, which is obviously not ideal on a track that is quite slippery. In addition, it’s important to have a stable car when you want to drive on the kerbs.”
For Sutil things were more positive, with the German managing 71 laps in three hours, with his fastest time being a 1:17.964 set in the afternoon, a session in which he did 47 laps in the #99 C33. “This morning was quite good,” said Sutil. “It’s really fun to drive on this track! Obviously the surface has very little grip, and in addition there are numerous chicanes, but overall the car was quite good to drive.
“The main challenge in the morning was to get the tyres to work. In the afternoon this was a bit easier. We tried different downforce levels. We still have to sort out some issues with the aerodynamics. Apart from that, there were no big surprises. We are where we are, and we have to make the best of it. The car is still not exactly where we want it to be, which is where it works the best, so we have some work left to do for tomorrow.“
Giampaolo Dall’Ara, Sauber’s Head of Track Engineering, summed up the days running by saying: “In the morning we did aerodynamic comparisons on both cars and the usual set-up work. We had to change a control unit on Esteban’s car, which cost him approximately half an hour. In the afternoon we concentrated mainly on the tyre comparisons. Apart from the problem with the control unit, it was a pretty normal Friday. We still have room for improvement. We need to analyse the data and draw the right conclusions.”
