Nasr eyes qualifying improvement in Barcelona

Sauber driver Felipe Nasr hopes he can start this weekend’ Spanish Grand Prix from a “satisfying” grid position, with overtaking generally difficult at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

The Brazilian has reached Q2 only once this year and seen team-mate Marcus Ericsson outqualify him 3-1 so far, though a floor change last time out in Russia seemed to have paid dividends.

With the start of the European leg of the season just around the corner, Nasr looks to unlock more speed on Saturday afternoon in a bid to get closer to the points-paying positions during the race.

“The Spanish Grand Prix is one milestone in the Formula One calendar,” he said. “In general we and the other teams have a lot of data from the track in Barcelona, as we ran most of our test kilometres there.

“For the race weekend it will be important to achieve a satisfying qualifying position, because overtaking is, in general, difficult on this circuit.”

Sauber has experienced a challenging start to its 2016 F1 campaign amid financial troubles and lack of upgrades to the C35. Although the Swiss outfit will miss next week’s post-Spanish GP F1 test, it will at least run Ferrari’s latest power unit specification during the Barcelona race weekend.

Ericsson hopes this can mark the first step in his team’s return to form.

“We all know the track very well from winter testing,” the Swede said. “It will be interesting to see how the C35 behaves in warmer conditions compared to the colder ones during testing in February. I am looking forward to racing there and hope we can make another step in the right direction.”

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