Formula One News » Sauber: Kobayashi’s Spa drive ‘excellent’ Posted on 03/09/2010
The Sauber team have given rookie Kamui Kobayashi full marks following his fifth points’ finish of the season in Belgium.
Kobayashi, who started way down in seventeenth after going off in qualifying, put in a great drive and took advantage of the ever-changing weather conditions at the legendary Spa-Francorchamps circuit to fight his way up into the top ten and eventually finish in eighth.
His performance didn’t go unnoticed and team boss, Peter Sauber, and technical director, James Key were both impressed.
“It was another strong and mature performance by Kamui in very difficult conditions after starting from way down the grid,” said Sauber.
Key added: “I’m very pleased we scored some points after a very difficult day on Saturday. It was a race with a lot of changing weather conditions, and the right calls had to be made at the right time.
“We had three spells of rain all together. The team made the right decisions, and Kamui did an excellent job by controlling the car in these difficult conditions and bringing it home in eighth. He came from a long way behind and made up a lot of positions.”
Kobayashi was also pleased to get some more points and put his Ferrari-powered Sauber C29 in the top-ten for the fourth time in the last five races.
“It was a very difficult race, but for me everything worked out fine,” Kobayashi reflected. “The team made very good decisions in choosing the right tyres at the right time, and the pit stops went well.
“For parts of the race the track conditions were changing every lap, and that was not easy. Especially after Saturday’s qualifying, I am very happy, I made no mistakes, brought the car home and scored four more points after starting the race 17th.”
Team-mate Pedro de la Rosa meanwhile just missed out on points in the sister C29 and was eleventh at the chequered flag. Considering he also made a mistake in qualifying though, he wasn’t too discouraged.
“It was a very interesting race,” said the Spaniard. “After I had to start last I should not complain about finishing 11th, but two laps before the end I was tenth and just in the points.
“I was on full wet tyres, the rain was not heavy enough and there was not enough water on the track to stop destroying those tyres. They went off quite quickly and when I tried to catch Vitaly Petrov I made a mistake. I went into the gravel and lost two places.
“Nevertheless for me it was the right move to go for full wet tyres. We had to take our chances today [after what happened in qualifying].”
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