Valtteri Bottas has bemoaned Sauber’s ‘weakest’ performance of the Formula 1 season at the Dutch Grand Prix but hopes the circuit will serve as an “outlier”.
The Finn and team-mate Zhou Guanyu failed to make an impression on the battle for points, propping up the field in 19th and 20th at the end of the race – the only drivers to have been lapped twice by winner Lando Norris.
Whilst Sauber has failed to score a point this term – the only team not to finish in the top 10 – Bottas and Zhou have at least been able to fight midfield rivals on occasion, something it was unable to do at Zandvoort.
“I didn’t expect the performance to be this poor,” said Bottas.
“The start was actually OK and we were in a decent place compared to where we started from but after like five or six laps, I saw that I struggled to follow the pack.
“That’s when I knew that we didn’t quite have the pace. I was hoping that maybe with other tyre compounds things could be better, but it never did. We tried all the compounds, so it’s not the tyre, it’s the car. It just doesn’t work on this track.”
Valtteri Bottas, Stake F1 Team KICK Sauber C44, Logan Sargeant, Williams FW46
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
Asked whether he believed the performance was a wider-ranging problem or specific to the Dutch venue, which provides a unique challenge on the calendar, the former Williams and Mercedes driver replied: “We haven’t been this weak in any of the races this year, and it’s not like we made a step backwards. This track really highlighted the weaknesses of the car with the banked corners, with off cambers, cambers, plus the wind, it just highlighted the sensitivity of the car.”
“We’re really sensitive to crosswinds and tailwinds. When you’re going through bankings and off-cambers and cambers, it’s even worse because the ride heights, they are not in the right window. So, the whole car is just too peaky, too much on the edge, it’s not really a stable platform and anything that distracts it like crosswind, it just makes things a whole lot worse. “
The high-speed Monza circuit will provide a different challenge for the team this weekend before focus shifts to the flyaway races that close out the season.
On whether the problems faced by the Hinwil-based outfit could be cured before the end of the season, Bottas conceded: “It’s long term, I don’t think there’s a quick fix – but this track is quite unique and this kind of wind we rarely get.
“So I’m still optimistic that we can have better weekends and hoping that this was the outlier.”
