Sauber F1 Team comments on Monza Free Practice sessions

Italian GP – Practice – Friday, 07.09.2012

Image courtesy of Sauber Motorsport AG

Weather: sunny and dry, 23-28°C air, 28-42°C track

The Sauber F1 Team had a straightforward first free practice session ahead of the Italian Grand Prix in Monza, but a rather difficult second session in the afternoon. Both drivers, Sergio Pérez and Kamui Kobayashi, would have preferred to be able to do some more laps today and neither of them is happy with the Sauber C31-Ferrari’s set-up yet.  

Sergio Pérez:

Sauber C31-Ferrari (Chassis 03/Ferrari 056)

1^st Practice: 8^th / 1:26.323 min (26 laps) / 2^nd Practice: 9^th / 1:26.068 min (32 laps)

“The first free practice went alright and also in the second session we almost completed our programme, but I had to stop a few minutes early when the team called me in for some checks. Overall so far I have the feeling we are a bit behind expectations here. We lose quite some time on the straights and now have to find a good aero and set-up compromise. We definitely want to fight for the top ten in qualifying tomorrow.”

Kamui Kobayashi:

Sauber C31-Ferrari (Chassis 02/Ferrari 056)

1^st Practice: 14^th / 1:26.746 min (23 laps) / 2^nd Practice:  16^th / 1:26.730 min (17laps)

“It was a bit of a difficult day. I didn’t do enough running to decide on the settings and the downforce level. In the morning it was business as usual and also my first run in the second session was okay. But then, after we had made some changes, the car was bouncing an awful lot. I nearly spun on the straight. However, we identified the problem but could not fix it during the session. I think we have quite a lot of work to do tomorrow.”

Giampaolo Dall’Ara, Head of Track Engineering:

“The morning’s session was okay. We were focusing on aerodynamics as you always do in Monza because of the special low downforce configuration. We did comparisons of rear wings and other parts. In the afternoon Kamui’s session finished early because we had experienced a problem which we could not solve during the session. Actually after this we are not confident to continue with the planned programme and want to have a closer look at everything now. On Sergio’s car we discovered something wrong on the data shortly before the end of the second free practice and decided to call him in as well.