Breaking news

Formula 1 Hungarian GP

Sauber to run full power for first time in 2017

Sauber is set to run its old-spec Ferrari Formula 1 engine on full power for the first time this season after successful debut of its cooling update.

Lawrence Barretto

Edited: Jul 29, 2017, 12:16 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Marcus Ericsson, Sauber C36

The Swiss team has struggled with cooling problems all season, which in turn meant it had been forced to run the engine at lower levels to prevent overheating.

But a new cooling system was part of an upgrade package Sauber brought to Hungary and, following Friday practice, Marcus Ericsson believed it has delivered as hoped.

"The big thing is the cooling system," Ericsson told Motorsport.com. "You don't feel [the difference] but the engine guys could see the engine was running in much healthier temperatures.

"[It was] maybe not so much today but for qualifying and the race, we can turn up the engine a lot more. Hopefully we can extract more performance from that, which is something which has been hurting us quite a lot this season.

"The engine has been running quite high and we have to go down on engine settings. We already have the old power unit so you don't want to turn the unit down.

"The way I understand, we can turn it up maximum tomorrow for qualifying, something which we haven't been able to do this year."

Ericsson was pleased with the update package as a whole, but accepted getting out of Q1 will likely still be a challenge.

"It was a good step in the right direction, maybe not as much as we want but it's always like that - you always want more," he said.

"I definitely felt the car, straight away in FP1, was a step forward. There was a bit more grip in general, compared to what I'm used to. The update was working.

"If we can tune the car better to get the tyres better over a whole lap, we should be able to mix it up with guys ahead of us.

"Will it be enough for Q2? I don't know. It might not be possible. I was feeling quite confident in the car today so we could maybe do it."

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Haas F1 suffers “brutal” day in Budapest, admits Steiner

Next article Hungarian GP: Ferrari dominates FP3, Ricciardo hits trouble

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

The ten closest finishes from the 2026 NASCAR season

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup 10 h

The ten closest finishes from the 2026 NASCAR season

‘Lewis suspected a conspiracy’ – Nico Rosberg explains how Lewis Hamilton F1 rivalry went awry at Mercedes

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1 10 h

‘Lewis suspected a conspiracy’ – Nico Rosberg explains how Lewis Hamilton F1 rivalry went awry at Mercedes

BMW "proud of what we achieved" after securing runner-up in 2026 WEC

WEC

WEC WEC

Monza

12 h

BMW "proud of what we achieved" after securing runner-up in 2026 WEC

The numbers that reveal how sprint races have turned the MotoGP title fight upside down

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP

Qatar GP

14 h

The numbers that reveal how sprint races have turned the MotoGP title fight upside down

Feature

Discover prime content

How seizing every chance – and making it happen – keeps Pierre Gasly’s fire burning

Formula 1

By Jake Boxall-Legge

How seizing every chance – and making it happen – keeps Pierre Gasly’s fire burning

Tough love and F1 titles – A key life lesson behind Wolff's Mercedes success

Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

By Ronald Vording

Tough love and F1 titles – A key life lesson behind Wolff's Mercedes success

How Brazil showcased everything that's good about F1 - plus some that isn't

Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

By Filip Cleeren

How Brazil showcased everything that's good about F1 - plus some that isn't

Top 10 F1 cars of the 1970s

Formula 1

By Kevin Turner

Top 10 F1 cars of the 1970s

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts