Felipe Nasr has struggled so far this season, unable to find the correct balance in the C35, with the bottom end of the grid where the Brazilian has spent most of his time.
However, the Sauber F1 team have elected to receive the latest specification Scuderia Ferrari engine for the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix, first used by the Maranello-based squad in Russia, and that should hopefully give the Swiss team and Nasr the boost in performance they need to kick-start their season.
“The Spanish Grand Prix is one milestone in the Formula One calendar,” said Nasr. “In general we and the other teams have a lot of data from the track in Barcelona, as we ran most of our test kilometres there.
“For the race weekend it will be important to achieve a satisfying qualifying position, because overtaking is, in general, difficult on this circuit.”
Team-mate Marcus Ericsson has generally fared slightly better than his colleague, but would still prefer to be finishing higher up the order, a twelfth place in Bahrain his best result so far this year. The Swede is looking forward to returning to the Circuit de Catalunya this weekend, and is hoping the team can push forward from here.
“The Spanish Grand Prix always kicks off Formula One’s European season,” said Ericsson. “We all know the track very well from winter testing.
“It will be interesting to see how the C35 behaves in warmer conditions compared to the colder ones during testing in February. I am looking forward to racing there and hope we can make another step in the right direction.”
