Two Stop Strategy Yields Two Valuable Points
By Jamie Makin (9/5/2004)
May 9 2004
Team SAUBER PETRONAS drivers Giancarlo Fisichella and Felipe Massa finished seventh and ninth respectively in today´s Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona.
After what appeared to be a disappointing qualifying result of 12th and 17th places for the Sauber drivers, today's race in Spain revealed some additional pieces of the story. The slow times were a result of both Giancarlo Fisichella and Felipe Massa running the harder compound Bridgestone tyres and opting for an unconventional two-stop pit strategy. A similar strategy had lifted Fisichella from 19th to 9th in the San Marino Grand Prix two weeks earlier, and the team gambled that they could put it to good use again.
Their efforts were rewarded with Fisichella claiming his first championship points of the season. He talked about his result after the race. "My car was very good all the way through, and when we were running together I was much quicker than Montoya. I don´t know whether he had a problem, but I could keep ahead of him quite easily. The only problem I had was in lapped traffic, when I lost some time. Without that maybe we could even have had the sixth place. But I am happy. We made progress at Imola and we made some more here. If we keep doing that we will just get stronger still."
Felipe Massa had even more ground to make up than his teammate after a slight mistake in qualifying, and proved that he could rise to the challenge. "I flat-spotted my front tyres in Turn 10 in the first stint, trying to pass somebody, and that gave me a lot of vibration and understeer. I could see Giancarlo, but he was going away from me. I changed the front wings slightly in my first stop, and on fresh rubber the car was fine for the rest of the race. It felt great to beat the McLarens and without that initial problem I really think I could have been in the points. I´m very pleased for Giancarlo and the team that he scored some."
Team Principal, Peter Sauber, also expressed his delight at the hard work of his team this weekend. "Two points is fantastic for us, particularly as it is so hard to do that and we won them fair and square. At least as valuable to us was our race performance. We had a super strategy and very strong performances from both drivers. Giancarlo drove just the way I had in mind when we signed him for 2004, while Felipe overtook both McLarens. Our lap times were also absolutely competitive, which is further endorsement of the progress we are making."
Today's race proved that Sauber's new wind tunnel is already producing promising results for the team, with the cars running some parts that were developed in it. The small team is steadily working their way up the grid, and today proved to be quicker than both Minardis, Jordans, Toyotas, Jaguars and McLarens. Furthermore, Giancarlo Fisichella managed to be competitive with Juan Pablo Montoya's Williams and finished in front of BAR-Honda's Jenson Button. Going into the weekend, Button had been tipped as the favorite to win, but a mistake in qualifying put him too far back on the grid to challenge. It is a huge credit to the Sauber team that one of their cars managed to hold him off for the duration of the race.
The team will head to the Silverstone Circuit next week for a three-day test session before the Monaco Grand Prix in a fortnight.