Sauber's Hulkenberg excelled at Barcelona despite low-speed issues
Having secured a brilliant fifth-place finish at last Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix, Sauber driver Nico Hulkenberg has praised the updates of his car that gave the Swiss team " a step forward in performance."
Sauber made a good impression at last weekend's Spanish Grand Prix. Gabriel Bortoleto displayed eye-catching pace in qualifying, securing 12th place on the grid for the Barcelona race.
His team-mate Nico Hulkenberg usually excels in qualifying, but he was unable to extract everything from his car on a single flying lap. However, the German racer made a brilliant start, picking up a handful of places to climb into the top 10 after starting P15.
Tbe Emmerich-born driver ran in P10 for much of the race, and was looking good for a championship point. However, he could capitalize on the late safety car intervention, picking off Racing Bulls' Isack Hadjar before also out-dragging the Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton down the straight.
Hulkenberg came home a brilliant sixth, but he was then later promoted to P5 due to a time penalty for reigning champion Max Verstappen.
Speaking of the race, Hulkenberg said: "It was one of those Sundays where everything came together really well. Right from the beginning, we were in the mix — a strong start, a clean first lap, and we were immediately able to fight for points. Ironically, not having the best Saturday and saving a set of softs gave us a strategic edge with the tyre allocation.
"The Safety Car mixed things up a bit, and having those fresh compounds turned out to be a golden ticket. There was a significant delta between used and new tyres today, so that really paid off.
“The car felt good all weekend, and the updates clearly gave us a step forward in performance — we had strong pace throughout the race. Credits to the whole team, both at the factory and trackside, for the hard work on the upgrades.
"I didn’t quite maximise things yesterday — it was disappointing to underdeliver, and I was frustrated with myself. But that anger gave me an extra push today. It’s satisfying to bounce back like this and bring home 10 points. Big result for us, that’s what matters in the end."
Going through the data provided by F1DataAnalysis, it emerged that Sauber's car lacked performance in low-speed corners last weekend.
Verstappen, the McLaren pair Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri and Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc were the only drivers to reach or surpass the 100-kph mark in the slowest corner of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
By contrast, Hulkenberg and Bortoleto were eight and nine kphs slower in the slowest corner of the track while their average was eight and seven kph slower than what Verstappen and Piastri achieved.
