Sauber: Two penalties in one race for Perez

2011 Chinese GP team review

April 18, 2011 at 3:13 pm by Keith Collantine

Sergio Perez picked up two penalties during the Chinese Grand Prix.

	Kamui Kobayashi	Sergio Perez
Qualifying position	13	12
Qualifying time comparison (Q2)	1’36.236 (+0.183)	1’36.053
Race position	10	17
Laps	56/56	55/56
Pit stops	2	3

Sauber drivers’ lap times throughout the race:

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/charts/2011drivercolours.csv

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40	41	42	43	44	45	46	47	48	49	50	51	52	53	54	55	56
Kamui Kobayashi	113.064	106.676	105.573	105.003	105.063	105.522	104.773	105.372	105.352	105.527	105.842	105.168	105.645	111.302	121.391	106.879	103.29	103.58	103.864	104.043	104.183	103.55	104.006	103.907	104.186	104.437	104.477	104.415	105.057	110.413	120.918	102.577	103.032	102.82	102.864	103.307	103.134	103.115	102.738	102.768	102.694	102.784	102.824	102.786	102.965	102.661	102.852	103.211	102.967	103.322	103.9	103.838	103.844	103.879	103.852	104.287
Sergio Perez	115.657	107.461	105.983	106.689	106.2	105.598	105.964	105.912	106.742	106.1	105.993	105.743	104.474	104.736	105.201	110.414	120.445	103.72	102.968	103.457	103.301	103.373	103.738	103.34	103.499	103.621	103.275	103.557	104.919	105.749	104.19	103.695	104.362	104.822	104.869	108.681	121.638	102.235	101.643	101.981	101.801	102.901	103.004	101.889	103.812	103.695	113.91	107.07	112.005	106.738	130.56	102.338	103.243	102.845	103.678

Kamui Kobayashi

Kobayashi was one of several drivers caught out by the red flag in Q2 and took 13th on the grid.

He passed Jaime Alguersuari for tenth and ran a two-stop strategy to hold onto the position.

Although he couldn’t keep Vitaly Petrov behind he passed Paul di Resta with four laps to go to claim the final point.

He damaged the nose of his car early on but it did not prove a great problem:

“When I was trying to get close to Adrian [Sutil] on lap 14 we came across another car and I think the driver did not see me. We touched and this was when I got a hole in the car’s nose.

“Technically it was not a problem to drive with that, but practically quite a lot of dust and dirt came into the cockpit. My white overalls looked awfully dirty in the end, but this is obviously not important.”

Kamui Kobayashi 2011 form guide

Sergio Perez, Sauber, Shanghai, 2011

Sergio Perez

Sergio Perez out-qualified his team mate for the first time but picked up two drive-through penalties during the race.

The first came after he collided with Sutil, which he apologised for: “Most importantly I’m very sorry for the accident with Adrian – I am sorry for him and sorry for my team. At this time in the race I wanted to get the most out of my tyres, as I was under pressure from Vitaly [Petrov], so was quite aggressive.

“Unfortunately I lost the rear when I was already on the inside of Adrian and crashed into him. It is a real shame because, as I said before, this weekend I felt a lot more comfortable with the car than ever before.”

His second penalty appears to have been for his collision with Nick Heidfeld. An FIA stewards’ statement (PDF link) says no action was taken, however the team believe that is what the penalty was issued for.

Sergio Perez 2011 form guide

2011 Chinese Grand Prix

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31 comments on Sauber: Two penalties in one race for Perez

tkcom (@tkcom) said on 18th April 2011, 23:52

3 races in and Kobayashi has been finishing ahead of all other midfielders at every race (bar the DSQ). Also, it’s great to see Sauber with better reliability this year. So far, no exploded engine yet!

Reply Report user
bosyber (@bosyber) said on 19th April 2011, 8:06

Well done for Kobayashi and Sauber; and Perez, well, his middle stint is really nicely consistent at least and he does seem to have pace. Looking forward to see him calm down a bit and get some good results. The Sauber is definitely easy on its tyres, so they don’t loose as much time as others dropping down the field during pitstops.

Interesting that Kobayashi has changed to let others who are faster past relatively easy early on in the race so as not to loose much time defending, knowing their pit-stops might drop them behind again. They look to be regular points scorers.

Reply Report user
Erik said on 19th April 2011, 16:28

Although it doesn’t seem the popular opinion, I think the knock that Perez gave to Heidfeld did deserve a penalty. Nick had closed the line already, yet Sergio still went into a gap that was always going to disappear, or actually, was gone before he arrived.

An overoptimistic move to say the least.

Piero said on 19th April 2011, 19:49

Don’t focus on the penalties, focus on that little graph with the laptimes. Perez has been like that in all 3 races, very close to Kobayashi :)

Actually, Petrov and he were catching the Sutil-Kobayashi-Di Resta train when the incident happened… looking at where Petrov ended up, it could have been Sergio in the points.

If he learns fast and stays out of trouble, he’ll be on Kobayashi’s neck by the end of the season.

AG said on 20th April 2011, 19:12

The news came out that Sauber looks to have another sponsor! This is what having two young aggressive drivers will do for you… gets your car on the television more often. You don’t need to be the leading cars to get seen, as long as your driver’s are keeping it exciting.

Meanwhile Sutil is concerned over how he is doing compared to diResta, full of self-doubt it seems.

The only thing that Sauber may want to consider changing is engines. Unlike mercedes and Renault, Ferrari is known to use a better version of their engine for themselves. But a better engine could see them up towards the front a little more.

But I could be completely wrong and Sauber may surprise us and win a race or two. I hope so, I really really do.

Vettel, Kobayashi, diResta, and Perez in a four way battle would be great, if just for a few laps.