Jonathan Wheatley expands on curfew break on Friday evening after push from Gabriel Bortoleto, which helped them eventually in F1 Hungarian GP.
It started off slowly for Sauber in F1 Hungarian GP at Hungaroring. Bortoleto wasn’t as quick in FP1 and Paul Aron was forced to stop on track after issues. Nico Hulkenberg returned in FP2 but wasn’t as quick, while the Brazilian had another tough outing. This prompted the decision to break curfew.
The team eventually did so to fix the reliability and changed few things around. Bortoleto was on-site to see-through and thank the mechanics and engineers for the job done. That curfew time eventually transformed Sauber’s weekend as per team boss Wheatley.
Bortoleto eventually finished sixth after Q3 in qualifying. Hulkenberg had it tough on his side, but he showed better pace than Friday. “We didn’t make life easy for ourselves on Friday,” recalled Wheatley when talking to media. “I think that was obvious. We didn’t give Paul Aaron the run that we were hoping to in Nico’s car due to a reliability issue.
“And we had reliability issues on Gabriel’s car as well, which we had to sort out and fix. And the best way to do that was to take our time on Friday evening, understand the problems and break a curfew in order to do that. What I was hugely encouraged by was both sides of the garage helped out on that car that evening.
“Also, Gabriel stayed and came and thanked his crew. At the end of the evening, I think that just shows you not only the level of maturity he has, but the level of respect he has for the team. And it was the right decision. We came out with a strong, reliable race car,” summed up Wheatley, who also pointed out that one stop was planned for Bortoleto, even though they had back-up plan ready.
It was crucial for the Brazilian to manage the tyres which he did excellently, that helped Sauber stick to their original plan of one stop. They felt the strategy was correct on both sides, just that Hulkenberg couldn’t get back into the Top 10. He had a penalty but that didn’t affect his run.
“For us, the one stop was our Plan A, but it wasn’t a solid Plan A,” said Wheatley. “I think for everyone, it was really on the cusp of a two stop. We had to spend quite a bit of time on Sunday morning talking about it and we had the opportunity to change our strategy if we needed to. As it was, the car, Gabriel managed his tyres beautifully and he delivered a fantastic stint actually on both sets of tyres.
“So, it pretty much was never in doubt from that point. I think we delivered a really good race in terms of strategy. We delivered a good race in terms of everyone making the right decisions at the right time, looking at the big picture. It was a decision, it wasn’t an accident and it worked out well for us. And frankly, it didn’t really ever look like it was going to affect Nico’s race after his five-second penalty.”
Here’s Gabriel Bortoleto, Nico Hulkenberg on Hungarian GP
