24/07/2011
NEWS STORY
For the eighth time this season the Sauber F1 Team has scored championship points. After starting 17th, Kamui Kobayashi finished ninth in the German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring and picked up another two points. Sergio Perez was 15th on the grid and finished 11th - just out of the points.
Kamui Kobayashi: "My start was good and then I was able to gain some positions in the first few corners of lap one. This was nice. I had been 17th on the grid and was in 12th after the first lap. But then it was difficult because our pace just wasn't good enough here. The fact that we have scored points is down to a very good pit stop strategy, I want to thank the team for an excellent job. I was able to overtake both Williams during the race, but it was impossible to get Michael (Schumacher). He was way too fast on the straights. However, I'm happy we managed to score after a bad qualifying, and hope we will be performing better at the next race."
Sergio Perez: "I am not at all happy. Given our grid positions we knew it would be difficult to get some points today, but, as Kamui, has shown it was possible. I am angry with myself because I made a mistake on lap eight. I went off and was on the grass. This was why I had to pit early and change tyres. This obviously was not what was planned in the strategy. We recovered a bit from there, but not enough for points, which were my aim. Now I just want to look forward to the next race which is only a few days away."
Peter Sauber, Team Principal: "Looking at where we started from, we can be pleased with this result. Both drivers put in strong races, and the team was rewarded with two championship points."
James Key, Technical Director: "It hasn't really been our weekend, but it's great to salvage some points from the race. Kamui drove an excellent race, made the most of his tyres and quite tricky track conditions at the start, controlled it well and was able to defend his position against Vitaly Petrov. I think P9 was good. Sergio was pretty competitive as well. Unfortunately he had a spin in the opening laps of the race which put him behind. He did a lot of laps on the soft tyres and made them count, so he finished 11th just outside the points. Overall it's good to salvage something, but we have a bit of work to do for the next events just to get back on top of our performance again."
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