Valtteri Bottas contends that Sauber’s uncompetitive state during the opening weekends of the 2024 Formula 1 season has provided a “wake-up call” to the team.
Sauber entered the latest campaign aiming to rebound from an underwhelming season last term that saw the Hinwil-based squad slump to ninth in the standings.
But Sauber has remained positioned towards the rear of the grid with its revised C44 as Bottas and team-mate Zhou Guanyu were the final cars home in Saudi Arabia.
Bottas, who was the last classified runner for the second consecutive weekend, has explained how struggles with tyre warm-up prompted him to make a second stop.
“We thought for us going Softs and Hard would be the best, trying to be aggressive with the stop lap, but in the end, the issue was the Hard compound, we couldn’t make it work, we couldn’t create enough temperature and it took like at least 15 laps to get some kind of temperature and by that time we’d lost too much,” Bottas lamented.
“So, that was unexpected and, actually, that’s why I did two stops, we tried the Softs at the end if it worked better, it did but it was too late.”
Charles Leclerc commented that Ferrari had struggled to generate heat into the Hard compound, with Bottas also agreeing that Sauber discovered problems in Jeddah.
“It was basically this C2 compound, I think for this track they are just too hard,” Bottas argued.
“We thought that was because of the set-up issues on Friday when I tried them, but it wasn’t that.
“Even now with the improved set-up we couldn’t make them work, so, a bit of a calculation error there.
“I think it the end it was the same with Zhou, obviously he had a slow stop, like me in the last race, but still I think our pace wasn’t what we thought it could be.”
Bottas concedes that Sauber’s woes with the current Pirelli rubber have also hindered its one-lap prospects, with the Finn and Zhou both failing to advance from Q1.
“It was quite clear today that it just didn’t work. The Soft compounds were way better, so I think with our car it’s still difficult to generate a lot of energy into the tyres,” he added.
“That’s probably why the race pace was quite good in Bahrain, because the tarmac is rougher there and you kind of need to keep the tyres cool.
“But with a tyre like this we just felt we couldn’t generate enough temperature.”
Bottas admits that Sauber hasn’t taken the step it had hoped with its overhauled car concept, but he has also urged the team to address its other shortcomings.
A front-left wheel nut issue resigned Bottas to a 50-plus second pit stop in Bahrain, while Zhou’s charge from the back in Jeddah was halted with the same issue.
“Obviously it’s only race two out of 24, and we have some things coming in the pipeline but we definitively need to improve not just the pace but also on operational. We’ve now had both drivers having both issues in two races,” he acknowledged.
The ex-Mercedes driver has revealed that Sauber should have updates arriving in Australia and believes the break should enable the team to sort its pit stop troubles.
“I think we’ve got some bits coming for Australia, and now at least we have two weeks to try and solve the pit stops issue we have,” he disclosed.
“I think it was the same issue with Zhou with the cross threading, so that’s something we need to fix because even if we make the car faster, if we have long pit stops, it’s not ideal.”
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