KICK Sauber F1 Team made another step forward in terms of performance, with Valtteri Bottas setting the 13th fastest time in the Sprint Qualifying session at the Qatar Grand Prix.

It was a promising performance, both looking ahead to tomorrow's Sprint Race, but also in the perspective of the main event on Sunday. Team-mate, Zhou Guanyu, looked good early in the session but was unable to maximise his potential in the final run of SQ1 due to traffic, eventually setting the 19th fastest time of the day.

The team will aim to make up positions in tomorrow morning's Sprint Race, with points on offer for the first eight at the finish line, and continue fine-tuning the cars' setup ahead of qualifying for Sunday's main race.

Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Team Representative: "The latest upgrade we introduced in Las Vegas has proven to be a reasonable step forward for us also here in Qatar. This was clearly evident in Valtteri's performance, as he was able to advance to SQ2 after being P9 in SQ1, confirming the car's increased potential. While he will start the sprint race in P13, we've seen that the gap to the top 10 is now smaller than in previous events, and the car's balance felt much better for him. Zhou struggled a bit more, particularly on his out laps as, due to traffic, he was not able to get his tyres to the right temperature and finished the Sprint Qualifying in P19 - a result that does not reflect his potential today. However, we believe the sprint race tomorrow will be an opportunity for Zhou to better prepare for qualifying on Saturday. The team reacted quickly after the FP1 session, adjusting the rear downforce level, which helped us compete more effectively with our direct rivals in terms of top speed, an area that has been a weakness in Las Vegas. This technical decision, along with the team's agility, has been crucial in driving the car's improved performance. Now the focus is on tomorrow's Sprint Race: points may only be limited to the top eight, but the event could still present some opportunities for Valtteri to exploit his good starting position."

Valtteri Bottas: "Today's result was better than our average this season, which means we made another small step forward in making it to the second stage of qualifying. The competition is extremely close out there and we seem to be right in the mix, so I'm hoping we can find a bit more pace for the actual qualifying tomorrow afternoon and work our way into the top ten. Of course, we'll try everything we can in the Sprint tomorrow morning, but our main focus remains on Sunday and maximising our chances for the main race."

Zhou Guanyu: "We were quite close to making it through to SQ2, as the car felt pretty good. Unfortunately, we got it wrong in our time window for the final lap of the session: we waited too long in the pits and that meant we had too much traffic when starting the lap. It's a shame as while I was slower in turns one and two compared to the previous lap, I was able to gain seven tenths in the last corners - but the damage was done. Conditions out there were tricky: it was very windy and that made the high-speed corners very challenging. I think we had a chance to make it to SQ2, but we missed out. Let's see what we can achieve tomorrow."

Check out our Friday gallery from Qatar here.