Austrian GP Saturday Sauber notes

Jean Alesi: This morning we had a good set-up and I was confident for a qualifying place in the Top 10, but this afternoon my race car developed an engine problem during my first run. It wasn't cured by the second, so I aborted that and took over the spare C18. Thaz wasn't set up the same way, and though I set my best time on the first lap of my third run, it was very disappointing. I aborted my last run because the car just wasn't working as well as it had this morning.

Pedro Diniz:

We struggled to balance my car all day, without success. On my last run I even tried a pair of used front tyres, because the car doesn't seem to like new tyres here, but that didn't help. It just made the understeer worse and made the car very difficult under braking.

Peter Sauber:

You can come up with an explanation or everything, but I have nothing to say about this unexpected result.

Weather:

Cloudy but warm.