Sauber head of track engineering Xevi Pujolar admits the last 10 laps of the Brazilian Grand Prix were \u201cquite hard\u201d to experience from the pit wall, with Felipe Nasr on the verge of opening the team\u2019s 2016 point tally.<\/p>\n
The Brazilian eventually held on to ninth place, which is enough to lift the Swiss outfit past Manor and up into 10th place in the Constructors\u2019 championship.<\/p>\n
Nasr was even sixth before the final re-start in a rain-hit race that saw two red flags and five Safety Cars, but the 24-year-old then had to deal with faster rivals on fresher rubber charging through.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor Felipe, it was quite hard many times as our tyres were getting older and it was getting more difficult out there,\u201d Pujolar said. \u201cIt was just managing the pace, how much you can push and it was getting quite dangerous especially up the hill.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us at the end it was better to stay with the extreme-weather tyres and keep position. When fast cars were coming from behind we told Felipe \u2018Don\u2019t worry about him, let him go\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last 10-15 laps, it was quite hard because you could see drivers like Alonso coming much faster but we had Ocon and Kvyat making a bit of a barrier and that helped us.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur engineers were talking to the driver and I was scared even on the last lap with our car, just don\u2019t do anything wrong, don\u2019t say anything on the radio until he crosses the line.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having left Toro Rosso after the opening\u00a0grands prix of the current campaign, Pujolar was Sauber\u2019s first high-profile recruit following the team\u2019s change of ownership over the summer.<\/p>\n
The Catalan has been followed by Nicolas Hennel de Beaupreau, who was signed as head of aerodynamics, Ruth Buscomte, who joined as strategy engineer, and recently J\u00f6rg Zander, who will start as the new technical director next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has been some developments on the car and on how we operate,\u201d Pujolar replied when asked on Sauber\u2019s progress over the second half of the season. \u201cWe are trying to change a little bit with what we have seen through our experience at other teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is still much more to come. It\u2019s good to see that we are already making progress but it will take some time to put everything in place and 2017 needs to be a big step for us but I think we can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
2016 Brazilian Grand Prix – Driver ratings<\/p>\n
FULL REPORT: Hamilton wins delayed Brazilian GP to take title to wire<\/p>\n
Silbermann says … I’m going AWOL<\/p>\n
Romain Grosjean column: Time for Haas to raise its game<\/p>\n
INTERVIEW: Fernando Alonso: Why F1 is no longer just for heroes<\/p>\n
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via\u00a0Facebook\u00a0and\u00a0Twitter<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sauber head of track engineering Xevi Pujolar admits the last 10 laps of the Brazilian Grand Prix were \u201cquite hard\u201d to experience from the pit wall, with Felipe Nasr on the verge of opening the team\u2019s 2016 point tally. The Brazilian eventually held on to ninth place, which is enough to lift the Swiss outfit…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}