the australian grand prix review, sauber edition. or: why things are neither as good nor as bad as they may seem
with the first race of the season done and playing out much better than I would have anticipated, it's time to put all of our eggs into one basket and try to figure out what exactly happened during nico's (and to a degree gabi's) race, as well as see what we can make of it compared to testing, and what we can gain out of comparing them to each other. there is more focus on nico than gabi given I am more familiar with nico and we actually have a lot of past formula one races to compare to, but gabriel gets his own segments in this post, too.
the two biggest topics across testing for the sauber were arguably how good the drive is and how fast the pace is. which sounds broad, because it is, because the c44 sucked balls.
so, let's break it down a little bit further. race pace is quite straightforward--is the car quick enough. but what's wrong with how the car handles?
so far it has been understeer which has come up the most. the car understeers too much (and does so to aggravating degrees), which makes it hard to keep on the racing lines in the corners. in nico's case this is not the end of the world, as he is used to driving understeer heavy cars from his time at haas and prior, but it's still enough to be problematic.
the topic of understeer came up multiple times throughout sessions before the grand prix at melbourne, and then did so again in the race itself. when nico mentioned the understeer problem on lap 9, steven reported that the other car was experiencing it too. later in the race nico told steven to relay to gabi/gabi's engineer to be very careful in the last corners because their car handles poorly in those, especially with the conditions. this is where we later see gabi crash and end his race prematurely.
now, it's important to note that "understeer favouring drivers" is an oversimplification. significant understeer will always be to the detriment of the driver and speed, but some drivers prefer small amounts of it to an oversteer heavy car. the likes of lewis and alonso and nico and. well that's really it nowadays, as they're the last drivers from that era left. younger drivers tend to favour oversteer.
as understeer is not inherently problematic, it's important to know what understeer forces the driver to do. this one is pretty straightforward, too: brake earlier, let off the throttle earlier. it allows the front tyres to regain the traction lost from understeering. braking early loses the driver speed in the mid corners.
if you compare telemetry from 2024 in haas to this grand prix, you'll notice first that the haas was significantly quicker, and secondly that nico was able to brake later and for shorter intervals.
fastest lap comparison of the 2024 australian grand prix with haas (white) to the 2025 australian grand prix with sauber (green)
it is critical to keep in mind that 2024 was not a wet race. wet races are slower, and the wet racing lines lead to different braking telemetries. which is to say, there is actually very little to conclude.
I would have liked to analyze the differences between nico's and gabi's telemetries for the 2025 race, but could not find any distinctive patterns. sometimes nico braked later, sometimes gabi. sometimes nico lost more speed, and sometimes gabi did. coming to any conclusion whatsoever about gabi's telemetries is impossible given that we have no point of comparison for him. f2 telemetries are not available but would not prove very helpful in the first place, and we have no 2024 australian gp for him. that said, the overall usefulness of telemetries is already heavily handicapped by the weather of this race.
comparing nico's braking to oversteerers at the top of the field (ver, nor), the main thing of note I could find was that better car = more grip = allows for later braking even in the wet, therefore being more suited to the driving styles of those drivers. essentially; both nico and gabriel were forced to brake significantly earlier than they would have liked for speed/racing line optimization, both because of the wet conditions and the understeer heavy car. nico just takes it in stride because he is used to driving understeer heavy cars that force him to sacrifice speed in order to stay on track.
while the telemetries are rather inconclusive, we are still left with the onboards of the race.
if you watch nico's, you'll find him handling his car with a lot of aggressiveness and jerky movements during the race in melbourne today. if you compare that to any dry race from 2024 you'll also find that it doesn't track with nico's smoother race craft from then. I explained in another post of mine that nico is very unique in his race craft because he manages to be either smooth or aggressive consistently depending on what he is trying to achieve, as opposed to having one, set-in-stone, tailored to his preferences racing style. he is very flexible and adaptable, and we saw this yet again in him reverting to a very grip-gaining driving style during conditions which required those. (and honestly, when I noticed he was using his qualifying style during the race I started panicking a bit over if he'll, somehow, manage to wear his tyres too much. in the fucking wet. but he didnt, and I get to nod with satisfaction to myself that he is still a tyre management goat. my man I will never stop glazing you.)
this style of driving, with lots of wheel (over)correction is not really sustainable with the cars of the modern era. it offers more grip, but tends to overheat the tyres. consequently, nico got told to work on cooling the tyres not long after (and still before the track started drying and being unsuitable for inters), which he by the way did NOT appreciate and replied rather standoffishly to that he was already doing so. I guess you could argue he wasn't cooling them enough, but tyres and strategy all worked out really well for this race (which we'll get to later, too), so I don't think it matters much in the end if steven was just too late with his request or nico lacking in his tyre management attempts.
looking at gabriel's onboard you'll find him taking the corners far more smoothly. funnily enough, it's almost as though gabriel has the opposite problem: his tyres are not hot enough, and do not have enough grip. especially not in the wet. he is rather tentative when taking the corners, compared to nico who will take them harshly and trust that his overcorrection will save him from impending doom. gabriel asks for comparison to nico's tyre temperature over the radio (minute 30:20 of his onboard) and receives the answer that they are "very similar", but "need put as much temperature as [they] can, in a safe way." this confirms to me that gabi's tyre temperature is insufficient, but his race engineer (jose manuel lopez) would rather have him drive his tyres at less optimal temperatures than encourage him to risk himself and his race, which I both agree with and appreciate lopez for.
you can pair gabriel's smoother style with the wet and understeer problem and suddenly it seems almost inevitable that he crashed. honestly, it's an impressive showing of skill that he held on for as long as he did.
with all of that said, let's look at what this may imply for the c45 outside of wet racing conditions. it's hard to say anything wholly conclusive, but we aren't completely in the dark.
if you watched pre season testing you will have undoubtedly heard comms refer to how hard the car looks to drive, and how much both nico and gabriel have to jerk their steering wheels around to make it work. that gabriel was able to smooth this out by the australian grand prix is, to me, a testament of both the car improving and gabriel getting used to the car. while the smooth style he prefers was not perfectly suited to the car or conditions, he did make it work for a long time, which I doubt he would have if the car and his attunement to it were still in the same state as they were in february.
nico admitted to not feeling in control of the car wholly yet after qualifying. while the wet conditions may have forced him to stay aggressive on the tyres, it was probably amplified because of the car itself. this may be because nico is having a harder time adjusting to the car, or it may be because they have chosen a very common approach nico has had with his teammates; building the car around the other driver while nico adjusts his own driving to better match theirs. I want to make abundantly clear that this last one is speculation from my end, and that I am not trying to say gabriel is being favoured or that he is the "first driver" (which I do not believe sauber is in a position of affording to have). it is beneficial to the entire team if gabriel does well, and because we know nico is capable of driving less than ideal cars for his teammate's sake I can see this being an entirely mutually agreed upon decision by everyone involved. or maybe nico simply did not figure the car out as quickly as gabriel did. we cannot know.
I believe that there are improvements, and gabriel's evident feeling of comfort with the car is promising. I see some people saying "maybe it wasn't haas last year, maybe it was just nico." and while I want nothing more than to go yes and leave it at that, I don't think that is the truth. yes, this very good result was undoubtedly helped by what I consider to be nico's very exceptional skill as a driver. but it was heavily, heavily carried by the circumstances. do not make the mistake of expecting nico to perform in the sauber as he did in the haas. similarly, do not expect haas to perform as sauber did last year.
so what else is there?
I have already made my fair share of posts appreciating nico's race engineer, steven petrik, and have found lopez to be equally pleasant. sauber has two competent guys to help bridge a rough season. for gabriel, I especially appreciated lopez' ability to calm him down when he got overeager or too nervous, and for nico it was nice to see genuine discussion between him and his engineer about the best choices and strategy for the rest, as opposed to engineers that leave him in the dark or make him do his own strategy.
strategy went well, with the pit for inters proving crucial for nico's p7 finish. lopez' reaction to gabriel's crash was calm and he made sure to reassure gabriel when he started blaming himself needlessly.
communication across cars is really good, which I had not anticipated. I already mentioned that nico relayed some tips to gabriel over a game of telephone across the pitwall, and that gabriel asked for nico's tyre temp to compare to. they also both asked for lap time comparison's across the weekend. personally I do like to think this is a result of the exceptional communication we saw nico and kevin establish at haas, and nico learning that this is mutually beneficial and wanting to carry it over. but this is another case of us being unable to know.
sauber's pit stops aren't a problem, but haven't been for months now. that's old news. the weight seems fine. communication seems above average, disregarding a moment in the first half of the race were gabriel insisted his rear brakes were failing and lopez repeatedly told him they couldn't see anything on their systems. they did still try multiple different settings on the dash in hopes of fixing it, so it's not like gabriel was left completely to his devices with what he thought were failing brakes. in lopez' defense, it's also not exactly like he can do anything if gabriel is out on track. it's a frustrating situation for gabriel, with limited ways of response for lopez.
overall, pitwall and garage are open to suggestions and want to improve together with gabriel and nico. their car is just. bad.
two things almost completely unknown to us as of today are how much the car itself plays into tyre deg, and the speed on the straights. we will have to wait for a dry race to see how the tyres fare, and how much of it will be tyre management by the driver's versus the car's downforce messing with the tyres. additionally, so much of this race being driven on inters and a not ideal track for inters makes it hard to determine straight line speed. nico complained about speed in the straights, and I doubt they will have improved much. but we will be able to make more conclusive statements after a few races, hopefully.
this is my first time writing something this long about a race, or to be honest writing an analysis or conclusion on a race in general. it's not perfect, because I didn't write down a lot of time stamps and laps for the stuff I noted during the race/onboards. in the future I would like to provide more 'sources', so to say.
writing this took a lot of time, and I doubt every race will be exciting and information revealing enough to warrant one. but it was a fun thing to do, and I may write more in the future.
here's to sauber's wcc
