Formula 1

Sauber Race Report

Chinese GP

Edited: Apr 17, 2011, 3:21 PM

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Kamui Kobayashi, Sauber F1 Team

Chinese GP - Race

The Sauber F1 Team is leaving China after the third race of the 2011 season with another point thanks to a good race for Kamui Kobayashi, who finished tenth in his Sauber C30-Ferrari. It was an action packed race at the Shanghai International Circuit and Sergio Pérez was certainly part of that as, like Kamui, he was fighting from start to finish for positions. For two incidents the Mexican was penalised with a drive through and a ten second stop and go, and eventually finished 17th.

Kobayashi finished tenth and scored one point

Photo by: xpb.cc

Kamui Kobayashi: 10th
Sauber C30-Ferrari (Chassis 03 / Ferrari 056)

“I am very happy we were able to score at least one point today. I had a really good start and was able to make up positions. This was obviously important after not qualifying as high up as I wanted to. When I was trying to get close to Adrian (Sutil) on lap 14 we came across another car and I think the driver did not see me. We touched and this was when I got a hole in the car’s nose. Technically it was not a problem to drive with that, but practically quite a lot of dust and dirt came into the cockpit. My white overalls looked awfully dirty in the end, but this is obviously not important. I made my second pit stop a few laps earlier than originally planned, but it turned out to be okay to do the remaining 26 laps on the hard compound, although I must admit after overtaking Paul (Di Resta) three laps before the end those tyres where finished.”

Sergio Pérez: 17th
Sauber C30-Ferrari (Chassis 02 / Ferrari 056)

Sergio Perez, Sauber F1 Team

Photo by: xpb.cc

“My start as such was okay, but I had a very bad first corner and lost some positions. Most importantly I’m very sorry for the accident with Adrian (Sutil) – I am sorry for him and sorry for my team. At this time in the race I wanted to get the most out of my tyres, as I was under pressure from Vitaly (Petrov), so was quite aggressive. Unfortunately I lost the rear when I was already on the inside of Adrian and crashed into him. It is a real shame because, as I said before, this weekend I felt a lot more comfortable with the car than ever before.”

Peter Sauber, Team Principal:

“It was an exciting race and very difficult today for us to score points. However, having said that, we are satisfied with this one point. Our car had more potential than this result shows, but both drivers got stuck in traffic for long periods during the race.”

James Key, Technical Director:

I think it was always going to be a bit tricky from where we were on the grid

James Key

“It is nice to come away from here finishing in the points. I think it was always going to be a bit tricky from where we were on the grid, but our intention was to give it our best shot at top ten positions. Both drivers did a good job. It was unfortunate with Sergio’s incident, but we will look at that afterwards.

It is only his third race so perhaps he was a bit optimistic but, other than that, again he drove a really good race and I think his pace was very good. Kamui did a great job to do a lot of laps on the hard tyre at the end. We pulled him in early and he did okay. He brought home a point for us. However, Mercedes has taken a good step forward here and is ahead of us in the championship, so we have got to react to this as best we can and have a better weekend in Turkey.“

Source: Sauber

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