Still without points
Even in the United States, the first of three consecutive weekends scheduled in the Americas, Sauber failed to achieve its primary goal, which has been elusive since the start of this troubled season: scoring a point. The 17th place for Valtteri Bottas and the 19th for Zhou Guanyu once again highlighted the difficulties of the future Audi team, as they now look ahead to the next race in Mexico.
The result of a one-stop strategy
The Finnish driver, indirectly in the spotlight due to being overtaken by George Russell—a move that resulted in a controversial five-second penalty for the latter—opted for a one-stop strategy: “As a team, we tried everything today, switching to a one-stop strategy based on tire performance and the races of our rivals,” said the former Mercedes driver. “It was the right call to try, because you never know what might happen later in the race, but it didn’t work because we had to stretch our second stint a bit too much. At the start of the race, we managed to keep pace with our direct rivals, which is certainly a positive aspect we can rely on, but towards the end of the stints, we were still lacking pace. We’ve made progress in race pace, but we need to keep developing the car to close this gap and improve our future performances.” – the Finnish driver pointed out.
Two stops and a spin
His teammate Zhou Guanyu struggled even more, both due to the decision to go for two stops and a spin at Turn 1 on lap 10, an incident that sent him to the back of the field, finishing 19th, the last of the drivers to cross the finish line: “I had a great start and gained quite a few positions. The first stint went well, and I gave it my all at the restart after the safety car, knowing the others were on the hard compound. Unfortunately—and I apologize to the team—I carried too much speed into the first corner, hit a bump at the wrong angle, and lost the rear while trying to attack the cars in front of me. After that, the pace was difficult in the second stint, and I had a drop-off that we need to figure out—though the first 10 laps were quite promising, considering where we’ve been in recent races. Ultimately, today wasn’t enough, but we’ll keep pushing and come back stronger for the next race.” – Zhou Guanyu concluded at the end of the United States Grand Prix in Austin.
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