Valtteri Bottas addresses ‘challenging’ year for Kick Sauber as he hopes ‘clear direction’ can pay off after summer break

“It’s been a challenging year for us,” the Finn explained. “We still haven’t scored a single point which wasn’t the target going into the season. We wanted to see an upwards trajectory from last year, and it hasn’t happened.

“We started the season with not that easy a car to set up, and even on the pure pace, we were not quite there. We’ve made some improvement since, but more like baby steps instead of big jumps, unlike some other teams around us.”

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Sauber’s closest rivals in the championship are Williams and Alpine, who are four and 11 points ahead respectively, which should be a gap the Hinwil outfit can close down if they can get their car to challenge for points-scoring places.