Valtteri Bottas highlights the problems being faced by Kick Sauber in the ongoing 2024 F1 season, which has kept them on zero points with only six races remaining.
The 2024 F1 season started for Kick Sauber on a bad note when their pit stop process was severely hampered which resulted in loss of time and places, costing them points finish. They immediately had to focus on remedying the issue, which seemingly came at a cost of car development.
As the season progressed, their pit stop problem was solved which included a fastest team pit stop for Bottas in the recent Azerbaijan GP. But their pace overall has been a mess for string of races now despite the updates they have had. The overall efficiency is missing as per their drivers.
The Finn notes that they face issues at almost all everywhere and solving one problem limits performance on the other side. “I think for me, for sure the overall efficiency is not there and overall performance as we can see from the results, but also the car is quite a bit on the edge, let’s say, pretty sensitive to crosswinds, yaw and roll, kerbing content, uneven surfaces,” said Bottas.
“But yeah, I think in the last couple of months, we’ve really understood the weaknesses, especially after Zandvoort. As I said, the car is just quite sensitive overall. Of course, lacking overall performance as well and efficiency, but yeah, we’re too sensitive on certain factors with the ride and cornering conditions, let’s say. So it’s a bit on the edge.
“And yeah, the feedback: obviously me and my team-mate we keep giving as much as we can. But at the same time in this sport you can’t turn things around overnight or sometimes the lead times can be months. Once you see an issue then you always need to find a solution
“First you’ve got to design it, you’ve got to try it in the wind tunnel and then see if it’s actually better or not. So the lead times in the sport are big and also as a team we’re still not at the level of the biggest teams in this sport in terms of amount of people, as well as some facilities at the factory. And that’s still ongoing work.
“And I think Mattia has been taking this issue very seriously. So I think in the future there will be quite big changes,” summed up Bottas. They are to have updates in Austin, but it won’t be as significant which can change its fortunes. The goal is to score some points at least. It will be difficult to beat the likes of Williams ahead, but handful of points will save them from the embarrassment of only F1 team to not score in 2024.
“The whole team will have much more time at the factory [in this break],” said Bottas. “I’ll be spending some time there as well in the sim and in the meetings about the direction for the future. So it’s important and hopefully expecting then for the next race after this one to have some new bits, which is something that we really need.”
Team representative Alessandro Alunni Bravi added: “We have introduced a big package for us in Silverstone and Hungary that then was available to both drivers as of Zandvoort race. And now we need to optimise this package. We struggled to get out most of the performance, especially in Zandvoort. We made a step in Monza, but there is still a lot of work to be done to find the right balance.
“We will have other upgrades during the season. We are targeting Austin, but of course, for us, this year has been more marginal gains than a big step. So we continue to develop the car. This is also important, not just for this season, but also for 2025. It doesn’t mean that we are giving up this season, but we are working hard first to identify our weaknesses.
“And of course, nobody has a silver bullet in Formula 1. We know that we need to do steps and, you know, the upgrades that will be introduced later in the season should allow us to do another step. If this will be sufficient to catch up, our direct competitors will be just a track to assess this.”
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