Sauber Trackside Engineering Director Xevi Pujolar has revealed that a “hardware problem” is to blame for the team’s ongoing problems with pit stops in Formula 1.
Having slumped to ninth in the standings last term, the Hinwil-based squad has endured another disastrous start to the latest season and has failed to score a point.
But aside from struggling for competitiveness with its C44 car, Sauber has also hampered its own prospects with prolonged pit stops in each of the first three rounds.
Bottas was resigned to a 52-second stop during the season-opener in Bahrain, while team-mate Zhou Guanyu experienced a setback in his comeback drive in Jeddah.
Despite the team having promised it would bring improvements to solve the issue, the Finnish driver received a 31s pit stop during last weekend’s Australian Grand Prix.
With Sauber also fined €5,000 for spilling a wheel nut into the pit lane, Pujolar has conceded that the repeated hitch will require a more fundamental solution to be solved.
“From the first race, we found some issues with pit stops, with the cross-thread,” Pujolar explained.
“It’s something that we don’t find when we do free practice, or even during the winter, we didn’t find a problem. But then every time we go into a race situation it becomes more critical.
“We took some containment this week, some small modifications. It’s not robust enough, and we had one pit stop issue.
“As long as we have this issue, it becomes very difficult for us. It’s not the problem with the crew, the crew are doing everything correctly.
“We’ve got a problem with the hardware, and we need just to make sure that we have got time to find that solution and the parts and we’ll try to fix it for Suzuka.”
Pujolar has disclosed that “the final solution will take a bit longer” because the Swiss outfit is reliant on external suppliers for the specific parts that need to be changed.
Bottas had excelled over one lap as he progressed into Q2 for the first time in 2024, but his hopes of converting that into points ended with that extensive 31s pit stop.
Max Verstappen and the two Mercedes drivers dropped out of the running, with Bottas having been in contention with the Haas drivers, who both logged a points finish.
The 10-time race winner crossed the line 14th, one place ahead of Zhou, and Sauber Team Representative Alessandro Alunni Bravi admits its drivers are being let down.
“First of all, we need to apologise to our drivers, especially to Valtteri, who in the first part of the race showed he could match the top 10 drivers and was clearly fighting for a points finish, thanks to a good start and strong pace,” Alunni Bravi added.
“As we said before the race, we had implemented mitigation measures for our pit stop issue, something that has improved the situation but, as we have seen, not completely solved the problem.
“As a team, we need to take our responsibilities when these things happen. It’s the only way we can improve.”
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