Sauber spot “positive sign” but Valtteri Bottas still point-less

Sauber believe they have closed the gap to their nearest rivals despite still not scoring a point at the F1 Italian Grand Prix.

Valtteri Bottas finished 16th at Monza, two places ahead of teammate Guanyu Zhou.

Bottas, Zhou and Logan Sargeant (who has now lost his Williams seat) are the only F1 drivers in 2024 without a single point to their name, and Sauber are the only team without.

Sauber’s duo qualified at the back of the field so Bottas was fitted with a hard tyre and left to complete the longest opening stint, but the team’s efforts were largely in vain.

However, team representative Alessandro Alunni Bravi insists there is some optimism.

“We could see some positive signs in [the] performance by the team, even though the finishing positions, on paper, don’t look much different from the previous races,” he claimed.

“Both drivers were able to manage their tyres well, hard and medium alike, and this allowed us to follow the race strategy we planned before the race, with degradation under control.

“Of course, this is still not enough to fight for points, as we lack overall pace: but the low-drag package we brought to Monza and the setup changes we made for qualifying improved the car balance and gave Valtteri and Zhou a chance to fight.

“We still have a long journey ahead of us to be in the battle for points, but it is important to acknowledge that, today, the gap with our direct competitors has been reduced – it's a positive sign we need to outline.”

Bottas reacted to the race: “It has been a pretty clean, uneventful race for us; we went for a one-stop strategy, starting with the hard compound, as we tried something different and hoped to get lucky with the timing of a potential Safety Car.

“Unfortunately, that didn’t really work out for us, but I think it was good to give it a try.

“Looking back at how the race unfolded, I wouldn’t have done anything different: we gained a few positions on track, getting to P16 on merit, but that was really the most we could do.

“We haven’t made a huge progress in terms of pace, our weekend had started well, but we couldn’t really keep up with the momentum nor improve much: still, it has surely been a better weekend compared to Zandvoort. We have a lot of work ahead of us to make a further step, which is what we’ll be working in the run-up to the next back-to-back in Baku and Singapore.”

Zhou added: “Our pace today wasn’t strong enough to be fighting closer to the points – especially in a smooth race, without any interruptions or big shocks.

“While our pace was clearly an improvement over last weekend in Zandvoort, we are on the backfoot in terms of performance compared to our direct competitors.

“This weekend, we’ve seen some improvement in single-lap pace, but it’s clear that we need to find the car’s sweet spot and execute a flawless weekend to get the best possible result.

“Rather than relying on luck, our focus as a team is on putting our heads down and continuing to work hard to find those crucial few tenths of a second that will bring us closer to the top ten.”

Sauber will continue their evolution into Audi next year but will remain in their current guise.

Nico Hulkenberg from Haas has been signed for 2025 meaning Bottas and Zhou are scrapping to avoid the axe from F1 altogether.

Sauber and RB have the only two remaining vacant drives for next season.