Tag: sauber

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F1 2024 Season

Driver Profile: Valtteri Bottas

Bio:

Born in Nastola, Finland, in 1989, Valtteri Bottas has raced in Formula One since 2013. Racing in car number 77 for Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber, Bottas has had a rather tumultuous experience in Formula One thus far.

He began driving at a very early age, mostly on ice and snow in Finland, beginning karting at age six. He joined the Finnish National Karting team, which he was a member of for seven years, having gained a reputation in the karting scene in Finland as a race winner

History:


By 2007, Bottas was racing in single-seaters. He won three of five races in the Formula Renault UK Winter Series that year, missing out on winning the title due to complications with his racing license.

In 2008, he had another fruitful year, winning both the Formula Renault Cup and the Northern European Cup. These wins caught the attention of teams in other categories, gaining him a Formula Three seat for the following season with ART Grand Prix. He finished third.

While racing in the same championship the next year, he became the test driver for Williams Formula One team, a position he held for three consecutive years. He won the Formula Three title in 2011 while being test driver.

Bottas made his full Formula One debut in 2013, as a Williams driver. He finished fourth overall the following season. He stayed here until the 2017 season, at which point he moved to take over the Mercedes seat of Nico Rosberg, who had retired after winning the Driver’s Championship title the previous season.

Image Credit: aa.com

While at Mercedes, he was beaten by his teammate Lewis Hamilton for Driver’s Championship titles throughout his stint at the team. Commentators and journalists often accused the team of favouring Hamilton and sacrificing Bottas in the process. Despite this, Bottas continued to drive spectacularly, winning ten grand prix. This was not enough to satisfy Mercedes higher ups causing Bottas to move to Alfa Romeo Sauber (now Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber) on a multi year deal from 2022 onwards.

At Sauber, Bottas has not had the success that he did at Mercedes. Nevertheless, he has received praise for his mentoring of newcomer Zhou Guanyu. He put up a great fight in the midfield.

Image Credit: autoracing1.com
Current Performance:

Bottas has struggled this season. Sauber’s car is slow and usually not fast enough to bring the drivers to points finishes, regardless of Bottas’ skill. He currently has zero points in the Drivers’ Championship standings and holds 20th position, having not finished higher than thirteenth yet in a race this season.

Future:

Bottas’ future is unclear. His current contract expires at the end of this season. Although no official announcements have been made, Bottas has made it clear publicly that he wishes to stay with Sauber into 2026 and beyond (when the team shall be taken over by Audi). No other team has shown public interest in him as of yet. Rumours are circulating surrounding a potential move back to Williams to replace Logan Sargeant, however, these rumours have not been substantiated.

Written by Alexandra.

Featured Image Credit: @valtteribottas on Instagram.

Categories
F1 2024 Season

Driver profile: Nico Hulkenberg

Nico Hulkenberg was born in 1987 in Rhein, Germany. He is the most recent driver to announce that he is moving teams for next year. So, let’s take a look into the Hulk’s career.

Past

Hulkenberg first entered Formula One in Bahrain in 2010 with Williams. In his rookie year, he took pole position at a rainy Interlagos.

Image Credit: Gulf News

In 2011, he was pushed into being a test and reserve driver for Force India. But the following year he was given a full-time seat for the team.

His next move saw him at Sauber with his highest championship finish in a season so far, finishing in P10 with 51 points. He equalled his best finish with a P4 in Korea.

At the start of the V6 hybrid turbo era, he returned to Force India. He scored points in 15 out of 19 of the races that season.

Image Credit:  James Moy/James Moy Photography/PA Images

Before his retirement in 2019, he raced with Renault for three years. His highest championship position was P7 with 69 points in 2018.

He returned to F1 full-time with Haas in 2023, replacing fellow German driver Mick Schumacher. The 2023 season was a dark time for Haas, finishing last with 12 points. P7 was both Haas and Hulkenberg’s best position.

Present

Five races into this year’s season, Haas are currently seventh in the Constructors’ Championship. Hulkenberg was able to pull off a masterclass with help of teammate, Kevin Magnussen in Saudi Arabia. With a 20-second penalty, Magnussen held back the midfield to allow Hulkenberg to pit without losing any positions. They finished P10 and P12, scoring the first points of the season.

Future

This season started with 14 drivers not having definite seats for next year. Nico Hulkenberg is the most recent driver to announce his multi-year contract from 2025. He will be leaving Haas and returning to Sauber, ready for their transition to Audi in 2026.

Image Credit: @stakef1team on Instagram

He may have never been on an F1 podium, but the future is bright for the German driver.

Written by Chloe

Featured Image Credit: PlanetF1

Categories
F1 2024 Season

Chinese weekend review: Stake Sauber

Home favourite Zhou Guanyu and teammate Valtteri Bottas had high hopes coming into the weekend for round five of the 2024 Formula One Championship. Let’s review how the team performed in each session of the weekend.

Friday 19th April

FP1
The team started the weekend very positively, with Bottas and Zhou ending the only practice session in Shanghai in tenth and eleventh respectively. Any result in FP1 was overshadowed by the grass beside the track spontaneously catching fire, causing the session to be temporarily red flagged. The marshals quickly extinguished the blaze, ending the red flag after only five minutes.

Sprint Qualifying
The new sprint weekend format saw Sprint Qualifying moved to
Friday afternoon in Shanghai. Zhou only just scraped through SQ1 in 15th place, while Bottas was in 11th.

Between SQ1 and SQ2 another fire started on the grass next to the track. This delayed the start of SQ2 while the marshals dealt with it. Both cars made it through to SQ3, with Bottas in P7 and Zhou in P10.

SQ3 became a wet session. But it was a continuation of the impressive performance in FP1, with Bottas qualifying in P9, followed by Zhou in P10 in wet conditions. This result pleased the crowd very much as they saw their Shanghai born home favourite drive his way into the top ten.

Image Credit: Getty Images via BBC Sports
Saturday 20th April

The team had a promising performance on Saturday this race weekend.

Sprint Race
After sustaining damage on the first lap of the Sprint Race, Bottas
fought for 12th place. Zhou finished the Sprint Race in 9th place, 31 seconds behind the winner Max Verstappen, only just missing out on points.

Qualifying
Zhou was knocked out at the end of Q1, qualifying in 16th place. Being knocked out at this stage of qualifying is not unusual for Sauber this season, but was disappointing due to hopes Zhou would get points at his home grand prix. Bottas, however, drove splendidly to make it through to Q3, eventually securing 10th place.

This was an excellent result considering the team’s form over the course of this season so far, and added an additional air of excitement in the team’s garage. It was the first time this season that Bottas had reached Q3, showing the improvement Stake made this weekend.

Image Credit: @stakef1team_ks on Twitter
Sunday 21st April

Grand Prix
The Shanghai International Circuit provides ample opportunity for overtaking, which meant it was still possible for both drivers to finish Sunday with a great result for the team. Following Bottas’ stellar qualifying and Zhou’s boost from his home crowd, the team were determined to make a great day out of Sunday.

Unfortunately, neither driver finished in the points in this race. Bottas retired on lap 21 following an engine failure. He was the first car to not finish the race, stating on the radio: “engine is gone”. He pulled over to the side of the track with smoke coming out the back of his car which triggered the first safety car of the race.

Initially, Bottas’ incident only triggered the Virtual Safety Car. But after issues with removing his car from the track a full Safety Car was brought out to ensure the situation was being handled in the safest way possible for marshals and drivers.

Zhou, however, did complete the race, ending in P14. He fought with the Haas of Kevin Magnussen throughout the race, coming out on top in the end. Unfortunately, he pitted on lap nine before both safety cars, meaning that he missed out on the pit advantage under safety car for those who waited. On lap 39, Zhou overtook the Williams of Logan Sargeant to reach 14th place, earning much encouragement from his fans in the crowd.

Image Credit: @stakef1team_ks on Twitter

Post-race reaction
At the end of the race, like the podium finishers, he was given a marker to park behind so that he could address the crowd of fans excitedly waiting to show him their appreciation.

Written by Alexandra.

Featured Image Credit: @stakef1team_ks on Twitter

Categories
F1 2024 Season

Stake F1 team: kicking things off for Sauber

Stake F1 team (formerly Alfa Romeo) has had difficulties over the past couple of seasons. They finished 9th in the Constructors’ Championship last year and 6th the previous year. 

With their rebrand this year, and the news of an Audi takeover in 2026, their goal for this season is to make improvements to become an upper midfield team and avoid finishing last.

Image Credit: @valtteribottas on Instagram

At the season opening in Bahrain, their qualifying pace was not showing any improvements from the previous season. They did not make it past Q1 and the Stake drivers were in P16 and P17 on Bahrain’s starting grid. Morale was low in the team.

However, an amazing performance from Zhou Guanyu (finishing P11) brought hope to the team to see their car fighting for the midfield. Valtteri Bottas’ race was not as fortunate. He lost three places from his original starting position because of a pitstop issue. There was a cross-threading issue with the wheel nut, which caused Bottas to lose 50 seconds.

Image Credit: @zhouguanyu24 on Instagram

Skipping forward to Saudi Arabia, Zhou crashed in FP3. Despite the team working overtime, the car was unable to set a lap time, meaning that Zhou had to start from P20. In a repeat of the previous race weekend, Bottas did not make it out of Q1, qualifying in P16.

There was plenty of chaos at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Pierre Gasly did not make it through the formation lap and Lance Stroll crashed during the race. This meant that Zhou had automatically gained two places. Despite the fight from both drivers, it was not enough to reach the points – they finished in P17 and P18. Zhou was showing promising results and reached P11, however, during his final pitstop the curse of Stake’s slow wheel changes continued, putting him back into last position.

As the Australian Grand Prix rolled around, the team changed their name to Kick Sauber due to the illegality of gambling in Australia. Zhou had a custom helmet for this race, with his teammate’s face on the back. And Bottas, as an honourary Aussie, made his debut in an Uber commercial.

Image Credit: @zhouguanyu24 on Instagram

For the first time this season, one of the Stake Sauber drivers made it into Q2. Bottas qualified in P13 in Australia but, unfortunately, Zhou qualified last in P19 (as Sargeant was not racing). With three DNFs – Verstappen, Hamilton, and Russell – and overtaking an Alpine, Zhou reached P15 in the race, with Bottas ahead of him in P14. Despite seeing better results than the previous two races, the team still faced issues with their pitstops. Both drivers had issues with the wheel nuts.

Image Credit: @valtteribottas on Instagram

Separate from the racing, with both of their drivers’ contracts running out at the end of this year, there has been rumours spreading about the team looking for replacement drivers. But, the real question is whether they are looking to change the wrong thing within the team. Because, with the drivers improving each race so far, the main issue that the team are still facing is the difficulty with their machinery during pitstops, causing major delays for the drivers.

Written by Chloe.

Featured Image Credit: @stakef1team on Instagram

Categories
F1 2023 Season

F1 Crews: James Key

James Key is a highly regarded figure in the world of Formula One, known for his exceptional engineering skills and contributions to various teams in the sport. Often seen in the media conferences for the technical bits and with a career spanning several decades, he is widely recognized for his technical expertise and leadership abilities. In the 3rd installment of our F1 Crews series, let’s delve into the life and career of James Key!

James Key was born on January 14, 1972, in England. From a young age, he exhibited a passion for engineering, which ultimately led him to pursue a career in motorsport and eventually ventured into F1. Key attended the University of Nottingham, where he earned a degree in mechanical engineering.

Key’s first steps into the top flight of motorsports began in the 1990s when he joined Jordan Grand Prix as a data engineer. His exceptional technical analytical abilities quickly caught the attention of the team’s management, swiftly climbing the ranks; becoming the head of vehicle dynamics for Jordan.

In 2005, Key joined the Super Aguri team as the chief designer, where he played a crucial role in the development of the race cars. Despite the team’s limited resources, Key’s expertise and resourcefulness allowed Super Aguri to achieve punch above its weight performances on several occasions.

In 2010, James Key transitioned to Sauber (now Alfa Romeo Racing) as the team’s Technical Director. During his tenure, Key oversaw the design and development of the team’s cars, contributing significantly to their improved performance. His ability to extract the best out of limited resources and optimize car performance on a tight budget was highly regarded within the paddock.

Key’s engineering prowess did not go unnoticed, and in 2013, he joined the Toro Rosso team (now AlphaTauri) as their Technical Director. At Toro Rosso, Key played a pivotal role in transforming the team’s technical department, revamping its infrastructure, and establishing new design processes. Under his guidance, Toro Rosso consistently produced competitive cars and achieved notable successes, including podium finishes.

In 2019, Key made a significant move to McLaren Racing as their Technical Director. Joining the team during their rebuilding phase, Key has been instrumental in McLaren’s resurgence over his term. His expertise in car development and race strategy has played a key role in the team’s return to the front of the grid.

As of today, James has been confirmed to join Alfa Romeo (formerly Sauber, soon to be Audi’s works team or at least majority stakeholder). He will be joining in his former role of Technical Director before Mclaren’s management restructure to accommodate Andreas Seidel (Check out his F1 Crews article!) leaving, also for Alfa Romeo. With his old leader along with him and the faith of the management, he will join his new role in an attempt to breathe fresh CFD air into the team. We look forward to seeing him in the sport! 

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