27/02/2024
NEWS STORY
The moment has come for Stake F1 Team KICK Sauber to tackle the challenge of the 2024 season. The team's C44 cars of Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu will line up at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir, under the floodlights, for the first of 24 intense rounds of racing in the 2024 Formula One World Championship.
Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Team Representative: "The start of a new season is always an important moment, full of expectation: it's the culmination of months of collective effort from everyone in the team and the first time we get a meaningful confrontation with our rivals. We are satisfied with the work we have done during the winter and in testing: we achieved all our objectives during the three days on track, without any significant issues, and we feel ready for the first race weekend. I think what we have done is a testament to the work of everyone back in Hinwil, and with our partners at Ferrari, and we are grateful to all of them for the relentless push since the end of last season. We now have a solid foundation, and everything will depend on what we build upon it. We need to keep progressing, bring updates that allow us to move forward, and maximise everything we can from each session. We also need to be conscious of the long season that awaits us: we have seen last year that fortunes can ebb and flow, that development will play a big role in the final standings and that every session, every race weekend can be the one that offers the best opportunity to score well."
Valtteri Bottas: "I am really looking forward to getting back to racing: there is no feeling like it, and no amount of testing will ever get close to what you experience in wheel-to-wheel battles. I am really curious to see where everyone stands once qualifying comes around: we expect the field around us to be, once again, super close and we are aware that we will need to extract the most out of everything - the driving, the set-up, the conditions - to be at the top of our grouping. We are confident we've done a good job in testing, now we have to continue improving for this race and each one that follows."
Zhou Guanyu: "It's finally time to race again, and I can barely contain my excitement. This is what motorsport is all about, and there is something even more special about the first race of the season, on a great track under the floodlights. I have some really good memories from Bahrain, from my first ever race in F1, and it always gives me a smile to get back on the grid here. We are happy with what we achieved in testing, although we know it's just the beginning of a long road. We have to keep improving, not just here this weekend, but in every race ahead of us: if we do that, we can have a lot of fun in the battle with our competitors. Every session is an opportunity and we have to make the most out of all of them."