Sauber’s 400th GP ends outside the points, but Nico Hulkenberg stays positive. Nico Hülkenberg finishes 12th at Imola and calls it one of his best races of the year.

The last driver to score points for the Hinwil-based team was Valtteri Bottas, who finished 5th in 2022 on the same track where Sauber celebrated its 400th Grand Prix in Formula 1 last weekend. A significant milestone was celebrated in the garage with founder Peter Sauber, but this time without the gift of a top-ten finish — something that has rarely happened this season.

Nico Hülkenberg’s satisfaction
One has to go back to the season opener in Australia to find the Swiss team in the top ten, in that case with Nico Hülkenberg finishing 7th. As the German driver himself stated, he was pleased with his own performance, crossing the line in 12th: “This was one of the best races for me this year,” he said. “We were more competitive compared to other weekends and today I had a better feeling with the car than on Friday and Saturday. In the race, we were lucky with the timing of the VSC, which gave us a chance to fight for points. Unfortunately, the safety car near the end didn’t help us. At the restart, I was surrounded by faster cars and couldn’t keep Yuki Tsunoda or Fernando Alonso behind, as he had fresher tyres. In the end, it all added up to prevent us from scoring points. In terms of pure pace, we still have a bit of ground to make up, but the margins are so small that even small improvements can make a big difference.”

Points still out of reach
A completely different comment came from teammate Gabriel Bortoleto, who finished 18th and last among the classified drivers and is still chasing his first points: “It wasn’t an easy race for me,” admitted the reigning F2 champion. “The positive thing is that our pace was good, especially on the hard tyres, and I was happy with that. The first stint was going well, but the Virtual Safety Car unfortunately came at the wrong moment for us and cost us a lot of momentum. From that point on, it was difficult to fully capitalise on the opportunities that came our way. It’s obviously frustrating, because for most of the race we found ourselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m still pleased with this small improvement in terms of pace, even if the results don’t show it. Now it’s time to analyse and understand where we could have done better and focus on the next round in Monaco.”