Sauber’s point-less year “a huge disappointment”

2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

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Sauber team principal Monisha Kaltenborn described the team’s 2014 campaign, in which it failed to score any points, as “a huge disappointment”.

The team has never before failed to score a point during an F1 season since it entered the championship in 1993.

The teams’ cars finished in 15th and 16th places in Abu Dhabi, with only the Caterham of Will Stevens behind them at the end. Kaltenborn said this was “typical of the 2014 season, which was a huge disappointment”.

“Everyone within the team worked very hard, but we could not achieve the results we aimed for. We were not able to score points, which has never happened before in the history of the team.

“There are many reasons for this. However, it does not make sense to point fingers. We will draw our conclusions and will initiate the right actions. We will move on and use our entire energy to bring the team back to where it was before, and where it should be.”

Sauber is parting company with both its drivers as it brings in Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr for 2015.

“A special thanks goes to Esteban Gutierrez who was part of this team for five years, first as an affiliated driver and afterwards for two years as a race driver,” said Kaltenborn. “We were with him through good and bad times. Esteban was always loyal to the team.”

Adrian [Sutil] surely expected more from this season, as we also did. With the issues we had with the C33 he was not able to deliver results which we as a team and he wished for.”

Giedo van der Garde did a great job as test and reserve driver. We thank all of them, and wish them all the best for the future.”

2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    18 comments on “Sauber’s point-less year “a huge disappointment””

    1. Does Sauber still have the 1:1 scale wind tunnel they had with BMW? If so, they’ve squandered it.

      1. thing is, it migth be a great tunnel, but first of all its old by now. And then F1 is not allowed to run anything over 60% scale nowadays @sennanmbr1

        1. Srsly? When the team has legitimately built and paid for a full size facility, too. How annoying!

          1. Yes @sennanmbr1 they’re not allowed to run the full-sized wind tunnel. That was brought up last year about them not being able to afford to go testing four times this season, so they’d rather run the full size tunnel, but were denied.

            1. It was my understanding that teams can use a full sized tunnel, however they can only use 60% scale models in that tunnel.

    2. That’s what you get with two at best mediocre drivers. They can’t blame it on the car either, ’cause Bianchi scored in Monaco in a Marussia.

      Also, looking at last year, it’s no surprise really. They looked ok in 2013 because Hülkenberg scored 51 points on his own, compared to the 6 of Gutierrez (all of which came from just one point-scoring finish).
      So they knew that Gutierrez was no good for scoring points, yet they went with Sutil (not really a HUGE talent in anyone’s book really) in the other car…

      I lost all sympathy I once had for the team, and the fact they choose to go with Ericsson next year only shows that they didn’t learn from this years mistakes.

      1. @lheela I’m sure that if Sauber had more money, they’d go for better drivers. Fact is, they don’t have the money and that’s why they need pay drivers. And it’s quite difficult to find a driver with a lot of money and a lot of talent.

        1. Rubens was scraping something together for Caterham, so maybe he can look behind his sofa for Sauber and drive for them next year :)

      2. The only 2 drivers to crash on the wet qualifying for the british GP.
        You have 22 guys and 2 from the same team crash on the wet.

        Yes. The car is bad, but this duo is beyond it. Sutil has weight problems, along with the car, but Gutierrez is just really, really weak. The other guy is racing with excess weight and even with that, Gutierrez isn’t able to do a better job.

    3. I really can’t see them doing much better next year with Ericson and Nasr. Like this year, it’s a pretty uninspired lineup. They used to be a place were up and coming talents proved themselves (Vettel, Kubica, Raikkonen etc) and now it’s just sad.

      1. They signed Nasr?! He might be good but if he’s not Hamilton-good then next year will be a repeat of this year unless the car is exceptional.

    4. it’s not like we expected anything else with that line-up. 2015 with new young talents will bring them better results again.

    5. The most mediocre, unrecognisable performance I’ve seen for a long time.

    6. I wonder how their sponsors feel about next year.

    7. They are becoming the next Marussia :/

    8. Ever since I started watching F1 back in 1998, I’ve had a soft spot for Sauber. Initially because of Jean Alesi, later because of their support for talented drivers (Raikkonen, Heidfeld, Massa) and because they seemed like a very ‘sensible’ team. Even as BMW Sauber I felt they had a great attitude towards drivers.

      I think something changed before or during 2012, when it became pretty clear that they were going to drop Kobayashi and were going to promote Gutierrez because he knew the team and had backing rather than picking the best driver available (not saying Robin Frijns, but certainly one of the better options).

      This year’s line up consisted of a driver in the fall of his career, which basically went from spring to fall overnight and a guy who might be talented, but seemingly can’t cut it in F1. It was perhaps their least inspiring line up since 2000, but Mika Salo had a hugely impressive 1999 and Pedro Diniz was the 90s example of pay drivers not having to be the worst of the worst.

      I think the team has gone into the wrong direction and frankly, they only have themselves to blame. Hopefully they can turn it around, but with Ericsson (underwhelming) and Nasr (rookie) it could very well be another ‘disappointment’.

    9. Watching the last few races of the season drivers like button and especially JEV were driving like they had a point to prove which is how it should be done but then I saw Sutil and Gutierrez and there was no fight in them at all. Good ridence to them two because they don’t deserve to be in f1. Good luck to sauber next year

    10. Not to rub salt in the wound, but I predicted as much as soon they announced their drivers. Describing either one as mediocre would sound like praise at this point.

      I don’t expect next year to be much better, really. At least not so far as Ericsson.

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