The atmosphere in the Sauber motorhome was not matched by many at Hockenheim on Sunday, with Kamui Kobayashi and Sergio Pérez having scored a huge 18 points for finishing fifth and sixth in the German Grand Prix. The result leaves the Swiss squad 27 points behind Mercedes for a top five position in the Constructors’ Championship.
The Pérez performance was particularly impressive, as the Mexican rose by 11 positions from 17th on the grid, whereas Kobayashi climbed up the order by six places.
“I am very happy for the team that we have managed to get a good result again,” said Kobayashi, who retired in Valencia and finished 11th at Silverstone. “We have been unlucky in the two most recent races and also had a bad qualifying yesterday. The performance of our car, especially in the dry, is really strong. If we only had qualified better we could have achieved even more today.”
The duo have now out-raced each other on five occasions across the ten races which have made up the first half of the 2012 Formula 1 season.
“I am so pleased for all of us that we have recovered after we had such a bad qualifying,” reported Pérez, who has scored points in half of the events so far this year. “I felt something strange on the left hand-side of the car - perhaps it was a puncture - but I don’t’ really know yet what it was. This obviously meant we had to extend the final stint and I ended up with quite old tyres. The team did a great job today and this will give us a good boost for next week’s race in Budapest.”
Perhaps the happiest staff member was Team Principal Peter Sauber.
“I think it’s fair to say this performance was outstanding and it was rewarded by 18 championship points," he smiled. "Congratulations to the drivers, who both did an excellent job, and thank you to the whole team."
F1 now heads directly to Hungary to complete the back-to-back Grands Prix which precede the four-week summer break. Sauber’s best result at the Hungaroring, which is located on the outskirts of Budapest, is Johnny Herbert’s third place finish of 1997.
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Sergio Perez
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Peter Sauber
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| Pos. | Driver | Team | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  F. Alonso | Ferrari | 1:31:05.862 |
| 2. | J. Button | McLaren | +6.949 |
| 3. | K. Raikkonen | Lotus | +16.409 |
| 4. | K. Kobayashi | Sauber | +21.925 |
| 5. | S. Vettel | Red Bull | +23.732 |
| 6. | S. Perez | Sauber | +27.896 |
| 7. | M. Schumacher | Mercedes | +28.970 |
| 8. | M. Webber | Red Bull | +46.491 |
| 9. | N. Hulkenberg | Force India | +48.162 |
| 10. | N. Rosberg | Mercedes | +48.889 |
| Full results | |||
| Peter Sauber | |||
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| More Peter Sauber photos | |||
| Kamui Kobayashi | |||
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| More Kamui Kobayashi photos | |||
| Sergio Perez | |||
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| More Sergio Perez photos | |||
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