Sauber disappointed with solitary point

Sergio Perez suffered a puncture after the collision with Michael Schumacher © Sutton Images

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Sauber head of track engineering Giampaolo Dall'Ara said that the team was unhappy with only scoring one point in the Singapore Grand Prix.

Sergio Perez finished tenth despite a collision with Michael Schumacher which left him with a puncture, mainly thanks to a two-stop strategy that gave him track position. Dall'Ara said that Perez had done a good job, but that the team had made an error with Kamui Kobayashi's strategy during the safety car period caused by Schumacher's crash.

"I can't pretend to be that happy with one point, as I think we were expecting a little better than what we achieved today," Dall'Ara said. Unfortunately the Safety Car didn't come at the right moment for us. Under the circumstances I think what Sergio did was the best we could achieve here. I have to be honest and say we should have left Kamui out during the Safety Car period, but still I don't think he could have scored points today. Performance wise I think we are better than we looked, but we just didn't get through the traffic when it was there."

Kobayashi agreed that the car was competitive, but was unhappy at having his race further compromised by a drive-through penalty for ignoring blue flags.

"This was a very difficult weekend for me. Our pace all weekend was actually okay, but in the race, due to traffic and a mistake with the strategy when the Safety Car was on the track, it didn't work out. I was very surprised when I got the drive through penalty, because I didn't see any blue flags."

Perez said his strategy had got him in to position to score points, but that he was powerless to defend on heavily worn tyres at the end of the race.

"I think tenth was the best we could manage today," Perez said. "For my second stop I had to pit earlier because I had a puncture after the accident with Michael (Schumacher), and then I had to do a very long last stint - actually just a bit over half the race distance - with the second set of soft tyres. It is a shame to have lost a place to Felipe (Massa) in the end, but the tyres were finished and I couldn't defend anymore. We will keep fighting to get back sixth place in the Championship."

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