Bottas reveals cause of Sauber pit stop woes

Bottas fell victim to a 50-second delay in Bahrain to kick off the season, a precursor of the issues that persisted in the two events since.

Sauber has completed 11 racing stops thus far in 2024, with FIA documents revealing four of those have been especially slow.

The Race Pit Stop Summary document issued by the governing body details all stops in a race, listing the duration a car is in the pit lane.

In Bahrain, that duration was, on average, around 25 seconds. and in Saudi Arabia nearer 22 seconds. A stop in Melbourne cost teams around 18 seconds.

At each of those events, Sauber has had at least one stop where it took at least twice the average.

Following Bottas’ delay in Bahrain, Zhou Guanyu was forced to wait more than 20 additional seconds at his sole stop in Saudi Arabia.

In Albert Park on Sunday, both Zhou and Bottas were impacted; the former dropped just under 20 seconds on Lap 35 after his team-mate was delayed closer to 30 seconds on Lap 8.

“We have actually an issue on both cards with cross threading,” Bottas explained.

The team has acquired new equipment for this year, the honorary Aussie noting that it “is faster; it’s something that the top teams are using.”

He added: “With the wheel nuts, we tried to go for a route to make them super lightweight, so the material we are using is the issue.

“In pit stop practice over the winter, there was no issues, but we’re seeing that in races when the temperature gets higher because of the brakes, then the wheel nut [has problems].”

The 10-time grand prix winner underscored that the issue is with the hardware and not the pit crew.

“It’s more about components,” he said.

“It’s nothing that the pit crew is doing wrong or nothing the pit crew needs to change.”

Efforts to address the issue in Melbourne clearly failed, though it was accepted heading into the weekend that the problem would not be completely resolved for Albert Park.

It’s hoped, however, that a solution will be in place for Round 4, the Japanese Grand Prix, in two weeks.

After the opening three races of the season, Sauber sits above only Alpine in the constructors’ championship and is one of three teams (the other being Williams) to get off the mark.

Sauber pit stops, 2024