Nasr: Singapore will provide key answers for Sauber

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Felipe Nasr says next weekend's Singapore Grand Prix will provide a number of key answers for Sauber regarding how its development is going.

Sauber was taken over by Longbow Finance in July and has been able to push ahead with planned development of its car as a result. While the last two races have taken place on low downforce tracks, Nasr says Singapore will show just how much progress has been made with the car or if any further plans need revisiting.

"We have to see how much we are still going to be investing on this car, be putting focus on the car, or are we going to switch focus to next year?" Nasr said. "Running the car in Singapore, for the first time having the maximum downforce in the car because that track requires it.

"I want to see where we are going to be in terms of the efficiency of the package, how much is it really helping the car? Because until now, we only have data analysis from two tracks where we have been running medium- to low-downforce. Singapore will be the first time we really run the full package."

And Nasr also feels he has been unlucky so far in the two races since the summer break, limiting his own personal understanding of the updated car.

"Yeah, in the last two rounds… I got a puncture in the last one [in Spa] and got hit [in Monza]. As I said, I’m really hoping that in Singapore we get a clean weekend, putting all the work we do on Friday, again qualifying in recent rounds has been really good.

"We have been understanding the car, getting the car in the right window in terms of setup, getting the new package to work in a better way. We’ve seen the steps. All I want now is to have a proper clean race in Singapore and let’s see where we end up."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.