15/03/2025
NEWS STORY
KICK Sauber F1 Team started the 2025 Formula One season with a solid qualifying performance in the warm conditions of Melbourne's Albert Park Circuit.
In an intensely competitive midfield battle, Nico Hulkenberg narrowly missed out on Q2 by just 0.063 seconds, securing P17. Meanwhile, Gabriel Bortoleto succeeded in his first F1 qualifying session, advancing to Q2 and securing P15 with a confident and consistent performance.
Following encouraging results in free practice, the team will now focus on optimising race strategy and car setup to maximise opportunities in Sunday's Australian Grand Prix.
James Key, Technical Director: "We have mixed emotions today, because it feels like there was an opportunity to be a little further up the grid. But equally, it's good to be close to many of our direct competitors. The first two days in Melbourne showed that it's incredibly close. You just have to look at the lap times that we saw in Q1. But I'm sure that will continue to be the case through the year. We have improved the car during the weekend but there are still some steps ahead to find a better and more consistent setup; however, our long run pace looks reasonable. We have got some developments on the way over the next races which we hope will move us forward amongst this very tight pack. A big thank you to everyone in the team for the hard work in recent weeks for getting the cars prepared for the first race with several new developments which were finalised very late."
Nico Hulkenberg: "The first lap was okay, but I still don't feel like being the boss in the car and it takes a while to grow confidence. On my second quick lap I had a bit of traffic in sector one, which basically knocked me out in Q1. When you look at the times the field is very compact, which means that small things can have a big impact. It feels like we didn't maximise our opportunities today, which is not a real surprise, given that it's early days with a new team and a new car. Let's see what the conditions will be like tomorrow. If it rains, it will be a new game. We will do our best."
Gabriel Bortoleto: "I'm feeling quite okay - I think we did a decent job as a team, maximising the learnings from the three practice sessions. Q1 went smoothly; we put everything together and made the cut. I think making it into Q2 in my first-ever qualifying is definitely not bad. I wanted to give it a shot at Q3 and pushed a little too hard on my lap - I still managed to keep the car on track, but it didn't really make sense to try again. Still, I think we can be quite satisfied with the job done today. Looking ahead to tomorrow, there's a high chance of rain: anything can happen in these conditions, especially on a circuit like this. With a clean race and no mistakes, I think we can achieve a decent result, so I am looking forward to it."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Albert Park here.