It has been twelve months since Sauber last scored points at the 2023 Qatar Grand Prix. A year without points weighs heavily, especially considering the team is still at zero in the standings, sitting last in the championship as their rivals begin to pull away.
The team had its best chances at the start of the year, but they were hampered by pit stop problems, which, on several occasions, prevented them from maximizing their race performance, such as in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, or Japan, where they lost 3 positions in a matter of seconds during a pit stop.
After the first few races, where there was a real chance of picking up some points, the engineers struggled to keep up with their competitors in terms of development, even in a season where many rivals encountered difficulties. For example, Williams started with an overweight car, as did Alpine, while Racing Bulls and Aston Martin faced development problems, so much so that they reverted to previous specifications during the championship. However, while all these mid-tier teams managed to fight at the top of the midfield at certain points in the season, Sauber could not replicate such progress, remaining stuck in a technical crisis.
On the technical front, the situation is far more complex, compounded by a car that lacks downforce, is difficult to drive, and struggles on bumpy asphalt. Curiously, though, the pit stop situation has changed dramatically. After the disastrous start of the season, Sauber has been among the fastest in recent races, even recording the fastest pit stop time in Baku.
To give an idea, since introducing a definitive solution in Imola by changing the material of the wheel nut, the team has managed to complete pit stops in under three seconds on average in several Grands Prix. Before that race, they had consistently been above that critical threshold. Since the Belgian GP, Sauber has regularly placed among the top ten fastest pit stops in each race, often clocking times below 2.5 seconds.
For now, the team’s fastest pit stop of the season was in Baku, taking about 2.32 seconds. While this time doesn’t place them in the top ten of the entire championship, missing by about three-tenths of a second, the trend seen in the last few races highlights the consistency of the mechanics, which is crucial. Beyond pure performance, it’s essential to be able to repeat this speed over multiple pit stops.
This is a great satisfaction that confirms the Swiss team’s progress in this area, where in past seasons they were among the slowest on the grid. This was partly due to the fact that the mechanics needed new equipment to attempt faster pit stops, something Sauber was well aware of, which is why they invested in new tools this year. However, when they redesigned the wheel nut in terms of both shape and materials to make it lighter, the desired targets for robustness, particularly under high temperatures during the race, were not met.
This was one of the reasons why, for example, during testing, free practice, and factory trials, engineers didn’t notice these problems, as the context was completely different from that of a Grand Prix. After the issues in the early races of the season, the team made temporary modifications to try to manage the situation while awaiting a definitive solution, which only arrived in Imola with the introduction of a new material.
This solution took time, not only because more tests were needed to find the right balance between performance and reliability, but also because they had to wait for the modified parts to arrive from an external supplier, along with the necessary stock. While this may not yet result in points, the growth seen throughout the season represents a foundation on which to rebuild, with the goal of developing a more competitive 2025 car and avoiding the missed opportunities at the start of 2024 due to pit stops.
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