Valtteri Bottas has now revealed the ‘priority’ at Stake F1 Team Sauber after pit stop problems in the first three races plagued the Swiss squad’s start to the 2024 season.
The Hinwil natives are still yet to get off the mark this term with either Bottas or teammate, Zhou Guanyu. Only Alpine also sit below Sauber plus fellow pointless team, Williams, in the constructors’ championship. Zhou’s P11 finish in the Bahrain GP remains Sauber’s top result.
Bottas registered his best result of the 2024 season so far with P14 at the Australian GP with Zhou in P15. The 34-year-old finished the Bahrain GP in P19 having endured Stake F1 Team’s first problem at a pit stop. He also only sealed P17 in the Saudi Arabian GP with Zhou in P18.
The FIA fined Sauber for Valtteri Bottas’ pit stop problems at the Australian GP
Wheel nuts have been the thorn in Sauber’s side during each of the opening three races this year. Bottas endured a 1:14.773 pit stop in Sakhir compared to the average delta time of 24-26 seconds. The Finn also had a 46.969s stop in Melbourne compared to the 17-19s delta.
Zhou, too, has endured his own woes in the Sauber pit box with a 46.381s stop at the Saudi Arabian GP. Most pit stops took around 21-23 seconds in Jeddah. The FIA even fined Sauber €5,000 (£4k) in Melbourne as Bottas’ wheel nut rolled into the fast lane during his slow stop.
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Valtteri Bottas admits Stake F1 Team have ‘a lot’ of work’ to fix a ‘priority’ issue
Sauber have faced frequent problems with their pit stops with Bottas and Zhou due to cross-threaded wheel nuts. The team also implemented measures following the Saudi Arabian GP to try and mitigate their issues. But they were not enough to prevent another slow pit stop.
Speaking ahead of the Australian GP, Bottas even conceded that Sauber have ‘quite a lot’ of work to do. Fixing the wheel nut problems is now the ‘priority’ in Hinwil over everything, as well, as slow pit stops have left Sauber with a far-from-ideal start to their 2024 F1 campaign.
“Quite a lot needs to be done,” Bottas told RacingNews365. “We obviously haven’t scored yet, which is not ideal. We’ve got two races compromised by pit stops, which is probably the priority now to get sorted, and that is a work in progress.
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“We’ve now understood that there is a different behaviour in some of the components in the practice that the team did over the winter versus what’s happening with the race with different temperatures. So, it’s a work in progress on that.”
Sauber’s ‘not ideal’ start to the season only continued with Bottas’ costly slow pit stop at the Australian GP, too. The Finn bemoaned failing to score points again in Melbourne after their latest issue with a wheel nut. Bottas dubbed Sauber’s problem as ‘frustrating’ after the race.
The post ‘Not ideal’: 34-y/o F1 driver explains team’s ‘priority’ after ‘compromised’ start to season appeared first on F1 Oversteer.