Gabriel Bortoleto: The incident with Kimi ruined everything

      In Monaco, the Sauber team did not score points for the seventh time in a row. The best result was 14th place by newcomer Gabriele Bortoleto.…

      Gabriel Bortoleto (14th): "Monaco is famous for interesting qualifying, but racing is often boring, because it is almost impossible to overtake. Today's race was no exception, although the FIA tried to increase the intrigue by adding a second mandatory pit stop. Unfortunately, this did not bring results, and the use of a team strategy reduced the pace of the race – everyone was driving four to five seconds slower than their real pace, the tires did not degrade, and it was impossible to overtake.

      My race was complicated by the incident with Kimi on the first lap. I confidently beat him by the outside radius in the hairpin, winning the position fairly, but in turn eight he overestimated his strength, entered a little wider, and I had no choice but to hook the barrier to avoid an accident. This caused damage to the front wing and jeopardized my entire race.

      It's a shame that this happened. If it hadn't been for this incident, we could have tried to play a team game and maybe achieved more. We will continue to work with the settings to improve our position in qualifying and the race. If we consistently get into the second part of qualifying or the final, it will allow us to be closer to the fight for points."

      Nico Hulkenberg (16th): "I got off to a good start, gaining position on the first lap, but then the race didn't turn out the way we expected. Unfortunately, I often found myself in traffic, mainly because the teams in front of us were playing a strategic game. They were three to five seconds behind the pace on a lap to open the pit stop window for their teammate, and they were slowing down the peloton a lot. It's unpleasant.

      Such team games are part of the sport, but from the point of view of racing it doesn't look the best. The only real way to avoid this is to start in the top ten. We chose the optimal strategy and had excellent pit stops, but there was little we could have done to achieve a better result."