A difficult qualifying ahead of the Canadian GP for the Sauber F1 Team

In FP3 Felipe Nasr lost the rear of the car and hit the wall after he accidentally opened the DRS during his tyre warm-up on the back straight. The team put in a great effort to get the damaged Sauber C34-Ferrari ready in time for qualifying.

Marcus Ericsson (car number 9)

Sauber C34-Ferrari (Chassis 04/Ferrari)
Qualifying: 13th in Q2 (1:16.262 min / supersoft tyres)
3rd practice: 11th (1:17.578 min / supersoft tyres / 21 laps)

“It was a decent qualifying. Unfortunately I got a bit of traffic on my best lap, which cost a few tenths. After FP1 we made progress, and I felt comfortable in the car. We know we have a strong race pace, so our aim is to score points tomorrow, which I think is realistic.”

Felipe Nasr (car number 12)

Sauber C34-Ferrari (Chassis 03/Ferrari)
Qualifying: 15th in Q2 (1:16.620 min / supersoft tyres)
3rd practice: 14th (1:18.446 min / soft tyres / 12 laps)

“First of all, I want to thank the team for getting the car ready for qualifying. It did an amazing job, and I am really impressed with the work it has done. P15 in qualifying is still a position from which I will be able to fight for points tomorrow.”

Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal: “A big compliment to the team as it was able to fix Felipe’s car in such a short time after a violent impact. Qualifying itself did not run satisfactorily. There are still things that we could improve - at least a little bit better. The starting positions are ultimately not bad for scoring points in the race - and we have to focus on that.”

Giampaolo Dall’Ara, Head of Track Engineering: “With a bit more luck we could have made it into Q3 in this difficult qualifying. On the other hand, the team has done an excellent job as it managed to get Felipe’s car ready for qualifying after the incident in the third free practice. All in all our starting positions are not bad, so we can be optimistic for the race.”

Sauber F1 Team