Teams had their first day of running at the Bahrain International Circuit, ahead of the 2016 Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday. Following the two practice sessions on Friday, Felipe Nasr said that he was “not satisfied” with the handling of the new Sauber C35.
If you remember, Sauber was a little behind in the development process for this season. As a result, they missed the first pre-season test in Barcelona because the car wasn’t ready. They managed to get the car out onto the track for the second pre-season test, but that meant that they were effectively a week behind the other teams, in terms of evaluation and setup. As the team struggles to play catch-up for the first few races of the season, neither driver feels that the car is at the maximum performance.
“It was positive that we got in some mileage in both practice sessions,” explained Felipe Nasr. “In terms of driving, I am still not satisfied with the handling of the car. We still have a lot of work to do as we have to find more pace.”
Marcus Ericsson was the faster of the two Sauber drivers, claiming 16th position on the time charts for free practice one. For the rest of the day, both drivers hovered near 20th position on the time charts. Ericsson was also able to log some mileage, which is vital for improving Sauber’s performance:
“It was a productive day. I was able to collect some good mileage. We need that in order to continue our work in understanding the characteristics of the C35. There is surely room for improvement in terms of performance, but the main priority today was to put in as many laps as possible. Now we need to analyse everything to see what we can optimize for the rest of the weekend.”
Sauber will be looking to improve on their results in Australia. Nasr finished in 15th position and was the second last of the running cars, whereas Ericsson failed to finish the race because he retired from the race on lap 38 with a driveshaft issue.
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