Amid speculation by Felipe Nasr, who believes that his chassis is inferior to his teammate’s, Sauber has given Nasr a new chassis for the Russian Grand Prix. This was confirmed by Nasr during the Thursday press conference in Russia, insisting that this was a “sensible step from the team”.
Nasr has been complaining for the first three races of the season that his chassis is not as good as Marcus Ericsson’s. Nasr has been struggling with performance compared to his teammate and has been unsatisfied with the handling of the car. The Brazilian had a chance to drive Ericsson’s chassis during the pre-season testing in Barcelona, where he was quite satisfied with the car’s performance.
Nasr was able to confirm the chassis change during the FIA press conference:
“I can confirm I do get a new chassis here. You have to remember that a Formula One car is made up of many components and it’s just one part of it. I think it’s a sensible step from the team that we are looking further to discover these problems, these handling issues I’m having in the car. Since we put the car on track in Australia we’ve been having this very strange behaviour let’s say, it’s very unpredictable to drive the car.”
Despite the change, a performance increase from the Brazilian cannot be confirmed, as the team has not been able to identify any issues with the old chassis. Nasr is still sure that there is an issue with the chassis and insists that there are just a lot of places to inspect in order to find the exact issue.
Will a new chassis bring improvement to Felipe Nasr’s pace? All eyes will be on him for this weekend’s Russian Grand Prix at the Sochi Autodrom.
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Nasr: “I am still not satisfied with the handling”
