Sauber’s head of track engineering has blamed Ferrari for its woes this season as the Swiss team is just one of two to have failed to score a point so far in 2014.
His comments come after team principal Monisha Kaltenborn refused to lay the blame squarely on Ferrari despite admitting the engine’s lack of power is a “major factor”.
Giampaolo Dall’Ara sees it differently though. Whilst he admits the C33 “isn’t the best car” they’ve built, he says the lack of top speed afforded by the Ferrari power unit is their achilles heel.
“We received our new power train late. And all the associated information,” he told Auto Motor und Sport.
“The plan for the first test was to learn and sort out the reliability problems. Unfortunately, the laptimes were disappointing.
“The numbers show it pretty clearly. We lack top speed,” he explained.
“At Hockenheim, we noticed that we were not losing much to them [Williams] in the faster corners. The time we are losing is on the straight and under braking.
“It is clear that our engine is not at the level of the Mercedes. And despite our good cooperation with Ferrari, our hands are tied. And even Ferrari’s are as well because of the engine homologation.”
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