Different set-ups on both Sauber C33s were tested on Friday practice in Budapest

Giampaolo Dall’Ara: “Overall, the performance today was more or less what we expected."

During both practice sessions for the Hungarian Grand Prix in Budapest the Sauber F1 Team was able to go through the planned programme. Different set-ups on both C33s were tested, but further work on the tyre management is needed.

Esteban Gutiérrez (car number 21):
Sauber C33-Ferrari (Chassis 01/Ferrari)
1st practice: 11th / 1:27.967 min (25 laps) / 2nd practice: 18th / 1:27.480 min (32 laps)
“It was a good day. We worked on different set-ups and tried to find out more about the car. The morning session was a bit better than second free practice. We made some changes to the set-up in the afternoon to see which one works better. We collected a lot of data and are going to analyse it in order to find a compromise for tomorrow. Everybody is doing their best to find the right balance. We should keep on going in this direction.”

Adrian Sutil (car number 99):
Sauber C33-Ferrari (Chassis 02/Ferrari)
1st practice: 18th / 1:29.025 min (23 laps) / 2nd practice: 14th / 1:26.919 min (41 laps)
“Today we worked through our usual Friday programme. We tried the soft and medium tyres, and it was clear that the softer compound worked better for me. The track is quite slippery, and the driveability of the car is still difficult. We have less downforce than last year, which makes it difficult to keep the car under control. However, the team did a good job and from that point of view we had two positive sessions.”

Giampaolo Dall’Ara, Head of Track Engineering:
“Overall, the performance today was more or less what we expected. However, there are a few issues which we need to address. We had a big delta between the two cars in the morning, which was down to Adrian having problems getting the medium tyres to work, so we have been addressing this before FP2. On Esteban’s car we didn’t make major changes, because he was quite happy. In the afternoon we did the normal race preparation programme comparing the tyres and doing short and long runs on the two specifications. We experienced the opposite a bit with Esteban who was struggling on the soft tyres, so we have to analyse all the data in order to understand this and find a solution.”