Sauber F1 Team driver Pascal Wehrlein endured a difficult weekend at the 2017 Russian Grand Prix, having struggled with car balance and tyre issues throughout the three days.
“Since the practice sessions on Friday we knew that the race on this track would not be in our favour.
“During the race I wasn’t able to bring the tyres into the optimal working window which resulted in our less competitive lap times.
“In general I felt uncomfortable in the car this weekend. Now we need to look into the data to understand the reasons.”
With team-mate Marcus Ericsson also struggling with the C36 this weekend, Sauber have plenty of work to do ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix in two weeks’ time, to try to improve the so far below par performance of their car.
The good news is that big updates are on the way for the Hinwil based squad prior to the next race, which signals the start of the European leg of the season, but the other F1 teams will also bring improvements and that could cancel out any potential progress to be made.
“I hope that we can put in a better performance during the upcoming grand prix in Barcelona, where car updates are planned.”
Many will put the Swiss squad’s struggles down to the fact they chose to use 2016 specification Scuderia Ferrari engines, despite seeing how doing that hindered the season of Scuderia Toro Rosso last year.
Sauber are still confident however that they made the right decision, and can combat that deficit with chassis quality. Only time will tell if they are kidding themselves or not.
