Race report

No points today for Sauber at India

A drive through penalty for Gutierrez and a technical retire for Hulkenberg.

After scoring points in the last four races, the Sauber F1 Team leaves empty handed from the Indian Grand Prix in New Delhi. Up until a few laps before the end of the race Nico Hülkenberg was eighth, then a technical problem forced him to retire. Esteban Gutiérrez paid for his mistake early on in the race with a drive through penalty, because of a jump-start. This took away any chances of him scoring points.

Nico Hulkenberg, Sauber C32

Photo by: XPB Images

Nico Hülkenberg: 19th (DNF)
Sauber C32-Ferrari (Chassis 03/Ferrari 056)
Start on soft tyres, after 5 and 33 laps change to medium tyres, after 53 laps change to soft tyres after 54 laps retired “Today I would have passed the finish line in eighth place. We don’t know yet what happened. When I was braking into the last turn something clicked and all of a sudden my brakes were gone. Something must have been broken on the car. Following that I pitted and went out again, but something wasn’t right. It is very disappointing.”

Esteban Gutiérrez: 15th
Sauber C32-Ferrari (Chassis 04/Ferrari 056)
Start on medium tyres, after 26 laps change to medium tyres and after 47 laps change to soft tyres “This wasn’t a great weekend, yet I gained valuable experience during the race today. Unfortunately, I made a mistake at the start and I paid for that with a drive through. We had a good pace today and I had good fights with Fernando (Alonso) and Roman (Grosjean). I enjoyed that. The car had a very good balance. At the end I struggled a bit on the options, but still I think if I avoid mistakes and we are able to qualify better we can for sure finish in the top ten again.”

Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal:
“We are very disappointed, because Nico was clearly in the points before a technical problem forced him to retire. Even if this was a set back today, it is important for us to know that our competitiveness is still there. We are able to score points and still have a chance to improve. Congratulations to Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull for winning the World Championships.”

Tom McCullough, Head of Track Engineering:
“Overall it is disappointing to end our points scoring run, when we had the pace with both cars. Unfortunately, there was a problem with Nico’s car, which we still don’t know what it is. We sent Nico out with a fresh set of tyres, but the car was not driveable and it was not possible to continue. We have to wait until we get the car back from parc fermé to determine the cause of the problem. With Esteban, the jump-start resulted in a drive through penalty, and, as a result, it was not possible to score points. On a positive note, the performance of the car gives us every confidence for the remaining races.”