26/10/2024
NEWS STORY
Stake F1 Team KICK Sauber returned to Q2 as Valtteri Bottas lifted the C44 to P15 in Qualifying for the Mexican Grand Prix.
In the thin air of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, Valtteri translated a good performance from practice into a top-15 performance, on a day when a poorly-timed red flag, for Yuki Tsunoda's crash in Q2, probably prevented the team from achieving an even better result. On the other side of the garage, Zhou Guanyu struggled to find grip in his C44 and set the 20th time in the session.
The team will now focus on preparing to their best for tomorrow's race, with the firm aim to move forward and maximise every opportunity to score a good result.
Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Team Representative: "After a positive Friday, we have been able to realise the potential to enter Q2 here in Mexico. Valtteri delivered a very good qualifying session, and only the red flag for Tsunoda's crash prevented him from maybe gaining one position or more and finishing ahead of Stroll. With Valtteri in P15, of course we can have a better race strategy, and this is a sign that we can extract more from the upgraded package, also in view of the next races and next upgrade. Zhou struggled more than Valtteri to extract performance, and he finished P20: we will analyse the data to see where we can help him be closer to the direct competitors. Tomorrow's race will be a tough one for everybody, because of the altitude, and the cooling, for both engine and brakes, will be a factor. We need to be able not just to have consistent race pace, but also to manage the temperatures properly, in order to make the most of any opportunities arising during the race. For now, though, we can be satisfied with our performance in qualifying: we hadn't entered Q2 in a few races, and so we need to see as a positive sign the fact that Valtteri was able to reach our target by his own merit."
Valtteri Bottas: "I have mixed feelings about how the day went. The positive is that we made it to Q2: it has been a while since we had last been here, so that's really good to see for all of us. I want to thank the whole team for all the effort to get us there, hopefully it can give a motivation boost for the final part of the season. However, I feel we could have got even more than P15: we were unlucky with the red flag in Q2 - I was on a good lap, and I was in the last sector, close to finishing, when the red flag came out. I think that lap would have put us quite close to the top 10, which is a shame. At least, we are a step ahead from the previous weekend, and we seem to have decent pace here. We'll try our best tomorrow; it could be a very interesting race."
Zhou Guanyu: "Today's session was disappointing, as we struggled with grip across the board. Even though we saw significant track evolution, we couldn't quite achieve the speed we expected as the session went on. We'll need to dive into the data to understand what's holding us back and see how we can address it ahead of tomorrow. Starting from the back makes for a challenging race, but we'll be ready to seize any opportunities that come our way. With a long run into turn one, we're aiming to make up some ground right from the start."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Mexico City here.