22/09/2024
NEWS STORY
Stake F1 Team KICK Sauber fought hard under the lights of the Singapore Grand Prix, with Zhou Guanyu crossing the line in 15th place, ahead of teammate Valtteri Bottas in 16th.
During a race without any interruptions and no yellow flags, a rarity at the Marina Bay circuit, the team displayed a better turn of race pace. Teamwork was key, with Zhou providing DRS to Valtteri, enabling him to defend against Pierre Gasly in the final stint. With a mini break before Austin, the team will now return home, determined to work hard and extract more performance from the car as we continue to push forward.
Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Team Representative: "We completed a difficult weekend on a positive note, finishing P15 and P16 with Zhou and Valtteri. This shows that we improved on our starting position, unlike in the previous race and, on merit, finished ahead of one Alpine and one Racing Bull. Today, I especially want to praise Zhou for being a true team player. After his pit stop, we asked him to give Valtteri DRS from lap 40 onwards, and he helped his teammate stay ahead of Pierre Gasly by managing his pace while keeping in the necessary window. Both Zhou and Valtteri followed our instructions on tyre management, and we ended up with a positive result, particularly for the teamwork we demonstrated. This race shows that, while we still have a lot of work ahead, we are not out of the fight. We are here, maximising everything we have on track together with our drivers, our technical partners, and our remote garage, who supported our trackside engineers brilliantly today. We've made a step forward compared to the past, and we will continue to push."
Valtteri Bottas: "As expected, today was a tough race. Early on, I had issues with my front brakes overheating, which led to some front locking and eventually cost me time. We worked as a team to stay with the cars ahead in the opening stages, but we just couldn't quite manage it. On the plus side, we had a clean start, which later allowed us to stay ahead of a few competitors, but the race pace was still not what we needed, and we didn't get any help from safety cars today. Now, it's important we use these three weeks to find some performance, and hopefully, bring a strong upgrade to Austin to reset and finish the season on a high."
Zhou Guanyu: "I think today was a more positive race, compared to recent outings, as we showed that we can fight better with our competitors on high fuel. Clearly, something we need to work on is our one-lap pace to start from a higher position, but overall, it was a good race without mistakes. Today, we executed our plan well as a team and not only was my race clean, but I also played my part in the team strategy by helping Valtteri. I did exactly what Carlos [Sainz] did last year, consistently keeping Valtteri in my DRS zone to help him stay ahead of Pierre [Gasly], which was very important and helped us bring home the cars in 15th and 16th. The team gave me clear instructions, and I followed them in the most efficient way possible, doing everything I could to support the team. Hopefully, we can continue to make progress and make another step forward after the break."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Marina Bay here.