Sauber eyes fifth place finish for the 2012 season – Formula 1 news
Sauber has set its sight on the fighting for a place in the top five for the Constructors’ Championship for the current season.
Sauber has impressed in patches in the season as Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi have been able score points in most races. Perez almost had an opportunity to get his maiden victory as he finished second to Fernando Alonso at the Malaysian Grand Prix.
Sauber has strengthened its grip on the sixth place at the moment as they were able to score 20 points in the recently concluded German Grand Prix. Kobayashi was able to finish fourth while his teammate Perez finished sixth.
Chief executive officer Monisha Kaltenborn believes that there is potential for the team to improve on its performances. She said that the team has already scored more points than it did last year for it way to seventh place finish. The difference between
the fifth place Mercedes and Sauber is only 25 points and Sauber is going to be working hard to move past that gap.
“Our target is to improve significantly,” Kaltenborn told AUTOSPORT. “If it's just one position at the end of the season compared to last year, I would not call that significant. We can really go further up.”
Kaltenborn said that the team has been missing out on good qualifying results which have really been a hurdle for the team on race days. If the team is able to start further up and not mess up the qualifiers the results will improve.
Both Sauber drivers have failed to reach Q3 so far and have been had to work their way through the traffic to climb up the order throughout the season.
“This kind of result shows what we are capable of,” said Kaltenborn. “But we could do far more if we were starting further up and not messing up qualifying. This is the level that we have to target, and even higher because we know that the car can do more.”
It will be interesting to see how the team fares as the season progresses. The next race is at Hungary Budapest.
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