16/10/2011
NEWS STORY
The second Korean Grand Prix ended in disappointment for the Sauber F1 Team. Kamui Kobayashi and Sergio Perez were struggling all weekend with the pace of their cars, so finished in 15th and 16th respectively in a race during which they both had an additional pit stop due to incidents.
Kamui Kobayashi: "My start was okay, except I couldn't gain any positions. When I was fighting with Sebastien Buemi our cars touched and the front wing was damaged. I changed to supersoft tyres after ten laps, as I had started on the softs. When the safety car came out we lost the advantage from the fresh tyres, as everyone was pitting then. I also had some damage to the rear wing, but I don't really know where this was from. At almost mid distance Bruno Senna was behind me and was pushing extremely hard, which actually resulted in a damaged front wing. Because of that my car was understeering a lot and the tyres were blistering. I then had to pit earlier than planned to replace the front wing. After the second stop I was able to overtake a couple of cars at the back of the field, but there was obviously no chance to score points today. We were just too slow, but we will go and work on it."
Sergio Perez: "Initially my start was pretty good, but then I got stuck behind some other cars and the positions I gained were lost again. In the beginning with the soft tyres it was quite good, but then with the supersoft tyres I struggled. During the last stint especially they degraded way too much. I had to pit and change them three laps before the end because the front right tyre had a hole in it, and you could see the casing. It was a shame, but there was no way I could have finished the race with those tyres. However, we didn't have the pace today to finish in the points."
Giampaolo Dall'Ara, Head of Track Engineering: "In qualifying we were already struggling with the pace, and today it was not any better. We had hoped we would be able to fix some of the problems we had in practice with the grip, but we couldn't really improve the situation. For sure we had some incidents, but our main problem really was a lack of performance, as we were just slower than the competition. We tried to find a way through with our strategy, the drivers did a good job, but in the end we were not good enough. Now we have to react quickly."
Check out our Korean GP gallery, here.