The Sauber C30 was the second 2011 spec F1 car to be rolled out. One of the key aims for the new car is to be more reliable than the C29 which clocked up sixteen retirements in 2010. Some of the other targets the Sauber engineers set themselves were to improve aerodynamic efficiency, low-speed cornering, mechanical grip and to gain more flexibility in suspension tuning.
“We began work on the concept for the car in early May,” says James Key Suaber’s Technical Director, “and set about drawing up its architecture – the exact position of the engine and transmission, the wheelbase, the chassis and fuel tank, and the arrangement of the radiators. This allowed us to make maximum use of our limited resources and invest a lot of time in autumn 2010 in areas which have a bigger impact on the car’s performance.”
The striking visual features of the Sauber C30 are a raised front, slender waist, compact rear, new rollhoop, downward-sloping engine cover, and wing mounts front and rear. Propelling the car as before is the Ferrari 056 engine, while power delivery is courtesy of a new Ferrari transmission. The KERS also comes from the Maranello factory.
“In order to take a step forward in 2011, we were already systematically tackling the C29’s weaknesses over the last season – and we’ve made progress. The insights we gleaned were taken into account when the concept for the new C30 was being drawn up. Since some of the changes decreed by the regulations – particularly regarding the tyres – can only be analysed out on track, it was important for us to build, firstly, a fundamentally predictable car and, secondly, one that would provide sufficient flexibility to respond to ongoing findings at the track and during further development stages” Key summarises
Front end
The nose and the front section of the monocoque have a significantly elevated position on the C30, which optimises the flow of air to the underbody. In addition, the upper side of the monocoque around the front suspension is more contoured. The front wing is mounted to pylons which drop vertically downwards. The wing itself is based on the final specification from the C29, but a host of details have been modified. 
The layout of the front suspension is entirely new. It has been designed to give the engineers maximum flexibility in the set-up of the car. Key elaborates: “With Pirelli not confirmed as the F1 tyre supplier until a late stage, we only had a limited amount of information available. What we wanted to avoid was a situation where we would be limited in the mechanical set-up of the car.”
Centre section
Another area playing an important role this year is “packaging”, i.e. the arrangement of many small components such as electronics boxes, chassis-based engine systems, the fire extinguishers, etc. in and around the cockpit and side pods. The reason for this is KERS, whose major components all take up additional space. The aim of the engineers was to integrate KERS without adversely affecting the car’s aerodynamics, weight and centre of gravity. The benefits of the technology are well known; for 6.7 seconds per lap the drivers can summon up an extra 60 kW of power. The entire system was developed by Ferrari. 
The cooling inlets have a small cross-sectional area and are positioned high up, which allows a prominent side undercut in the lower section of the sidepods. This helps to generate optimum airflow to the diffuser and rear wing. The arrangement of the radiators is also totally new: they are now mounted more vertically allowing for a strongly tapered rear. The volume of the car’s rear section as a whole has been significantly reduced to optimise the aero effectiveness of the rear end. Instead of extending straight back towards the rear, the engine cover is now angled downwards and contains rearward cooling exits.
Rear end
A familiar element of the car is the Ferrari engine, onto which has been bolted an all-new carbon transmission – also supplied by Ferrari. The design of the longitudinally mounted transmission has been significantly affected by the new diffuser regulations in 2011 which require a different approach to 2010.
The transmission picks up the inner pivot points of the rear suspension and so largely determines their geometry, which has been configured to exploit the potential of the Pirelli tyres to the maximum. As Key explains: “We were in constant communication with Ferrari, and enjoyed very constructive discussions. As with the front axle, it was important the design of the rear allowed a high level of flexibility in the mechanical set-up of the car.”
Although the technical regulations for the diffuser are far tighter than in 2010, it still makes sense to use a blown diffuser, and the exhaust pipes are positioned low as a result. This is a new development for the team as it was not introduced in 2010. “This is an area where there’s a lot of potential for further development. I expect we’ll see some interesting solutions as the season unfolds,” says Key. Channelling the hot exhaust gases to the rear of the car without damaging the suspension components presented the engineers with a particularly tough challenge.
The rear wing of the C30 now has a single support mount in place of the twin arrangement of last season’s car. The F-duct is banned in 2011, but the regulations do allow the upper flap on the rear wing to be adjusted. The driver adjusts the wing electro-hydraulically.
Update 1: Barcelona test / Melbourne
The race 1 update included a new front wing with a more sculpted and non linear main plane, revised upper section and a Toyota TF110/Lotus T128 style upper element. The new wing also features a far more intricate end plate with an extra element compared to the launch spec.
Compare the new spec above with the launch specification wing used in previous tests.
The turning vanes ahead of the sidepod have all been extensively revised, a more sculpted version has been added to the C30 with an unusual upper section. An additional barge board style element has been added to its base, the main bargeboard design has also been revised. Its distinctive stepped design changed from the launch specification. This level of detailed sculpting would have been almost impossible a few years ago but with advances in CFD and the arrival of PIV such intricate details are here to stay.
RNew spec above and launch specification below.
The update also included a new winglet behind the rear wing central support.
Melbourne
Chassis: C30 01 (Perez)
Chassis: C30 03 (Kobyashi)
Following the race a pleased James Key, Sauber Technical Director stated; “this is obviously a very positive day to get both cars to the finish and into the points. Both drivers did exactly what we needed them to do. We had nail biting last few laps but Sergio did a superb job to finish the race with those tyres. Also for Kamui, the race and strategy worked well. He had to stop twice because of the tyres he used in qualifying. We are very happy with this start to the season and are looking forward to Malaysia very much.”
The cars were then both disqualified.
The regulations that the C30 is in breach of read as follows.
Any bodywork more than 150mm behind the rear wheel centre line which is between 150mm and 730mm above the reference plane, and between 75mm and 355mm from the car centre line, must lie in an area when viewed from the side of the car that is situated between 150mm and 350mm behind the rear wheel centre line and between 300mm and 400mm above the reference plane. When viewed from the side of the car no longitudinal cross section may have more than one section in this area. Furthermore, no part of this section in contact with the external air stream may have a local concave radius of curvature smaller than 100mm.
The rear wing element that saw Sauber disqualified from the Australian grand prix has been put down to a manufacturing process error a source within the team told gocar.gr. Sauber has three versions of the upper element of the rear wing of which two were taken to Melbourne. The version that was used had not been checked properly at Hinwil. This makes an appeal unlikely.
The wing element was found to be too curved to fit a 100mm ball template introduced for this season. The ball must stay in contact with the element at all times as it is rolled along it, in Sauber’s case it did not. The other wing version was also tested and did comply with the regulations.
Sepang
Chassis: C30-01 (Perez)
Chassis: C30-03 (Kobyashi)
Both drivers complained about the cars handling in practice, leading to significant set up changes
“I think we need to look carefully at the because we are losing about three tenths in the first couple of corners, and a little bit of time in the middle sector” explained James Key. “The balance of the car in low speeds is not ideal for the drivers, so we will look at that.
A potentially eventful race turned into more of a normal race, because we didn’t see the rain that threatened. We decided we would target two stops because we felt we could get away with that. It was very close to three stops in terms of race time, but we felt it allowed us the opportunity to hold our position at the end of the race. Both drivers made reasonable starts. Unfortunately for Sergio, who was driving extremely well, he had an issue with his car suddenly losing power and he reported he ran over some debris. That is when the power stopped so we have to look to see if there is any damage to the car. It is a shame for him as he was in a reasonable position and, with his strategy, could have perhaps picked up a few places. Kamui’s strategy worked fine. He knew he had to conserve the tyres, so the lap times were not the quickest because we had to do long stints for a two stopper, but the result was excellent for us. We are happy to get some points after what happened in Melbourne and, if you like, this is where it starts for us.“
The damage to the chassis hit by debris was significant enough to mean that it cannot be used in the Chinese Grand Prix and it has been returned to the teams HQ in Hinwil, Switzerland.
The C30’s sported new engine covers at Sepang (above), with a revised rear section, and outlet. The new solution is much more compact. Compare with the versions run at Melbourne (below)
The outlet at the rear of the cover for the gearbox cooler has also been revised.
The new outlet (above) is much smaller than the previous iteration of the outlet (below)
Shanghai
Chassis: C30-02 (Perez)
Chassis: C30-03 (Kobyashi)
James Key, Technical Director: “It is nice to come away from here finishing in the points. I think it was always going to be a bit tricky from where we were on the grid, but our intention was to give it our best shot at top ten positions. Both drivers did a good job. It was unfortunate with Sergio’s incident, but we will look at that afterwards. It is only his third race so perhaps he was a bit optimistic but, other than that, again he drove a really good race and I think his pace was very good. Kamui did a great job to do a lot of laps on the hard tyre at the end. We pulled him in early and he did okay. He brought home a point for us. However, Mercedes has taken a good step forward here and is ahead of us in the championship, so we have got to react to this as best we can and have a better weekend in Turkey.”
During the press conference ahead of the race James Key discussed the relationship with Ferrari.
“I think that what we get from Ferrari… obviously the KERS and engine, which are units which we build into the car. There are some architectural differences or let’s say some influences architecturally that they have but fundamentally they are units that we put in the car. The gearbox is probably the biggest part of what we’re supplied which influences the way in which we have to deal with the car, so the rear suspension obviously picks up off the gearbox, it’s our design but the pick-up points are pre-determined although we worked closely with Ferrari and where they were headed with the ‘box for this year and that works out as a pretty good process. I think that the rest of the car is really down to the philosophy that’s supplied by the team and I think we would expect Ferrari to be a bit quicker than us, because they are, traditionally, a championship-winning team ultimately and we’re not quite in that league yet. I think we picked up what we were given, we had some decent discussions at an early stage with Ferrari, but then it’s really down to us to put the rest of the package together, and obviously that’s the mechanical side. The aero side clearly plays a huge role in this and you’ve got to match your mechanical and your aero together to get the car to work properly and so on, and the front suspension needs to work in tune with the way the rear of the car is so the philosophy is that it’s the whole car and the parts we get supplied play a part in that, but not a huge part.”
Istanbul
Chassis: C30-04 (Perez)
Chassis: C30-03 (Kobyashi)
James Key, Technical Director: “What an eventful race! A great drive by both our drivers. The car was definitely a lot better than in qualifying, and the drivers extracted the most out of it. It’s a real shame we couldn’t get them both in the points and finish a bit higher up, because it was possible. Unfortunately, Sergio had front wing damage on lap one, and we had to change his strategy and put him at the back of the pack. Kamui had a puncture towards the end of the second stint, which dropped him back. So it’s a real shame, but we can’t complain, because we managed to squeeze a point out of it after starting with both drivers in a compromised position. I think it’s a tribute to Kamui’s race craft to go from P24 to 10. Now we have an updated package for Barcelona, and we hope this will help us to continue to score points on a regular basis.”
Barcelona
Chassis: C30-04 (Perez) Q: 12 R: 9
Chassis: C30-03 (Kobyashi) Q: 14 R: 10
Sauber ran new aero packages on both cars during free practice, with chassis 03 running a new outboard exhaust system; however, the team are not yet happy with the performance of the new system and opted not to run it during qualifying and the race.
Peter Sauber, Team Principal: “It is not easy in this very strong field to get points if you start 12th and 14th. Despite a puncture on Kamui’s car, thanks to a good strategy we managed to get both cars into the top ten. Congratulations to Sergio for his first championship points, as after he lost those from Melbourne he has had to wait a while. Kamui has shown another good fight back from the tail end of the field. I am very happy the new aero package has had the effect that the gap to the top teams did not grow and the gap to those behind did not shrink. I want to send a thank you to Hinwil.”
James Key, Technical Director: “It was a difficult start to the race in many ways. We recovered well and I think both drivers did particularly good jobs to get into the points. It was quite eventful right from the outset when we think Kamui was pushed onto the grass on the first lap and then got a puncture. He ended up coming in at the end of lap one and so was last on lap two. It was a great effort from him to come back and score a point, rather similar to the last race in Turkey, but this time without any tyre advantages. Sergio also drove well. He came in early and then really pushed on the hard tyre. Then we had some reasonably good soft tyres at the end when he managed to get up to the people he was fighting with and overtake them.”
A new front wing appeared at Barcelona (above), similar in concept to the one used in turkey but with the wings upper element gaining an end fence. It also gains an extra element itself. Compare with the Turkey spec wing (below)
Monaco
Chassis: C30-04 (Perez) Q: DNS R: DNS
Chassis: C30-03 (Kobyashi) Q: 13 R: 5
Sauber spent free practive testing their Monaco specific high downforce package as well as gaining experience of Pirelli’s super soft tyre. The team also ran a comparison between a DRS and non DRS equipped wing in the morning, but opted to run with the DRS enabled in the afternoon. Unfortunately Perez suffered a heavy crash on exiting the tunnel during Q3, resulting in his being hospitalised and missing the race.
James Key, Technical Director: “As always in Monaco, a very eventful race for all concerned. We entered just one car for Kamui with Sergio not racing. Our hopes really relied on Kamui. We opted to go for a one stop strategy, starting on the new soft tyres, and we had a new set of super soft for the second stint. Fundamentally Kamui drove a good race. It’s great to bring points home in what has been a very mixed weekend, both in terms of performance and emotion with Checo’s crash. We can dedicate these points to him as a team and hope that we can get back to normal in Montreal.”
Montreal
Chassis: C30-02 (Perez/de la Rosa) Q: 17 R: 12
Chassis: C30-03 and C30-01 (Kobyashi) Q: 13 R: 7
The Sauber F1 Team had a very busy and eventful first day to the Canadian Grand Prix weekend in Montreal with a driver change and an accident. After Sergio Pérez hadn’t felt a hundred per cent in the first free practice session in Montréal, the Mexican driver and the team decided it would be better for him to sit out this race weekend. Pedro de la Rosa stepped in for him and drove in the second free practice. By the time the car was ready for the Spanish driver, Kamui Kobayashi had gone off and his car had hit a wall on the challenging Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Kobayashi ended up in the spare car, chassis 01. The race saw Kobayashi climb as high as second, ultimately finishing in 7th, with his temporary team mate in 12th.
Peter Sauber, Team Principal: “This weekend started really badly for us with Sergio not being able to race for health reasons. However, going into the race from P13 and P17 and scoring six points is quite an achievement we can be proud of. Nevertheless there is also a slight disappointment because after the re-start we hoped for more. But circumstances didn’t help us. Congratulations to Kamui for a great race, and a big thank you to Pedro for all his efforts.”
James Key, Technical Director: “Overall this has been a pretty tough weekend with mixed fortunes. After some difficult practice sessions we hoped for a better showing in the race, and overall that’s what we got. Both drivers did well at the beginning of the race to make progress. It was a good call from the drivers and the team to initially stay out and gain some positions. Kamui held his positions pretty well after the re-start, and all looked fairly reasonable on wet tyres. The change to intermediates went pretty well for Kamui, but I think safety cars and the dry conditions in the end put us at a slight disadvantage with some quicker cars coming from behind, and Kamui couldn’t really defend against some of them. Sadly we ended up seventh. There was the potential for a better result, but then we can’t complain because we started further back. Overall Kamui did a fantastic job keeping it all together under pressure. To get piped by a couple of hundredths at the line in the end was rather unfortunate, but we collected six points. Pedro was looking okay, but then he had some front wing damage which unfortunately dropped him back a bit just outside the points. Otherwise he drove a solid race, and we thank him a lot for getting into the car at short notice and racing well.”
Valencia
Chassis: C30-02 (Perez/de la Rosa) Q: 16 R: 11
Chassis: C30-01 and C30-01 (Kobyashi) Q: 46 R: 16
James Key, Technical Director: “We are disappointed to finish outside the top ten for the first time this year. We took a gamble with both cars with the strategy to try and make something out of our compromised grid positions. Sergio did an excellent job to do a one stop race, which for here was always going to be pretty tough. He made his way to P11 in the end and wasn’t too far from the cars ahead in the points. He got quite badly held up by blue flags, and lost quite a bit of lap time there. That happened just before the last stops, and it dropped him back a bit, so we couldn’t make it there at the end. However, it was a good effort from him to hang on to the tyres. Kamui started on the soft tyres, then went on the medium in the middle stint, and tried to use the new soft tyres in the end as a two stopper. That didn’t quite work out. The medium tyres were too slow, but we didn’t want to run too long on the soft in the end. In hindsight maybe a three stop strategy would have been better. It was always going to be difficult to get a car in the points from where we started, because overtaking is still difficult here. We now have to go to Silverstone, a very different track from the last three, and make sure that we can improve.”
Silverstone
Chassis: C30-02 (Perez/de la Rosa) Q: 16 R: 11
Chassis: C30-01 and C30-01 (Kobyashi) Q: 46 R: 16
Sauber suffered a string of unfortunate incidents during the british GP, with Kamui Kobayashi suffering a fudged pitstop, resulting in a fine and stop go penalty, before being sidelined by an oil leak.
Peter Sauber, Team Principal: “I am very happy with Sergio’s seventh place, so congratulations to him. It was a difficult race for him, as for almost the whole distance he had to follow Nico Rosberg. He had more speed, but it was not enough to overtake. As for Kamui’s race, the incident with Michael Schumacher was quite annoying. It was an unnecessary collision that cost Kamui his chances of a good finish.”
James Key, Technical Director: “It has been a decent result for us today. I think Sergio did a great job of controlling a race which was tricky in many ways with the adverse conditions to begin with, and then just a single tyre change onto the dry tyres. He was battling with Nico Rosberg for pretty much the whole race, sadly be couldn’t get through. His start wasn’t great, so he dropped back a bit, but he hauled that back with his pace and the strategy, which was a good effort by the whole team. It was a great shame for Kamui, as he was looking competitive, but then he had a coming together with a Mercedes. Then during his stop we had a problem which resulted in him being released later than originally planned and unfortunately there was an unintentional clash with a Williams. That took a huge amount of downforce away from his front wing and he was then unfortunately quite slow. Then he had a ten second drive through penalty and an engine oil issue, possibly due to the impact he had with the Mercedes, so we decided to retire him and not damage the engine. At the end of the day we have come away from a long weekend with points so thank you to the team.”
Nurburgring
Chassis: C30-02 (Perez/de la Rosa) Q:15 R:9
Chassis: C30-01 and C30-01 (Kobyashi) Q:18 R:11
James Key, Technical Director:“It hasn’t really been our weekend, but it’s great to salvage some points from the race. Kamui drove an excellent race, made the most of his tyres and quite tricky track conditions at the start, controlled it well and was able to defend his position against Vitaly Petrov. I think P9 was good. Sergio was pretty competitive as well. Unfortunately he had a spin in the opening laps of the race which put him behind. He did a lot of laps on the soft tyres and made them count, so he finished 11th just outside the points. Overall it’s good to salvage something, but we have a bit of work to do for the next events just to get back on top of our performance again.”
Hungaroring
Chassis: C30-02 (Perez/de la Rosa) Q:10 R:15
Chassis: C30-01 and C30-01 (Kobyashi) Q:13 R:11
James Key, Technical Director: “This was obviously a disappointing end to the race. At the beginning the conditions were pretty uncertain. Kamui made a good start. We put him on the soft tyres on his first stop, but unfortunately they didn’t last as long as we were hoping, and on the second stop he got in some traffic. He also lost a place due to a problem on his pit stop. Sadly in the end we had to make another pit stop because we were unable to hold off the people behind us. Sergio lost ten places at the start and soon after, and wasn’t able to recover from that.”
Spa-Francorchamps
Chassis: C30-02 (Perez/de la Rosa)
Chassis: C30-01 and C30-01 (Kobyashi)
James Key, Technical Director: “This was a disappointing result after a reasonably promising day yesterday, and the pace was not quite as good as it should have been either, so we need to look at why that was. We could and should have scored points today, but for various reasons it didn’t work out for us. Sergio did well to try and maintain his position at the start, but he had an incident with one of the Toro Rossos, which we need to look at, and subsequently got a drive through penalty, so that pushed him right down the order. There was some damage to his car and the rear axle, which we now need to investigate this as that was part of our problem, and we had to retire him. Kamui lost several places during the safety car period. We called him into the box but for some reason he came in a lap later, so there was a miscommunication that we need to look into. We have to gather ourselves up and go to the next race.”
Monza
Chassis: C30-02 (Perez/de la Rosa) Q:15 R: DNF
Chassis: C30-01 and C30-01 (Kobyashi) Q:17 R: DNF
Peter Sauber, Team Principal: “We deliberately put all our focus on the race, accepting that this would compromise our qualifying performance. Our performance today proved that this approach worked out perfectly. We were faster than our direct competitors. Today it would have been easy to score many points, but both our drivers were stopped by gearbox problems, Kamui on lap 23, and Sergio on lap 33. Sergio drove an excellent race and was safely in seventh at that time, and running on a one stop strategy which was perfect today. In addition, our car was as fast as expected today.”
At Monza Sauber fitted a special ultra low drag rear wing, it worked at the C30’s were very fast through the speed traps all weekend (until they broke). Compare the Monza wing (above) to the low drag version of the normal C30 wing used at Spa.
Singapore
Chassis: C30-03 (Perez/de la Rosa) Q:11 R: 10
Chassis: C30-04 and C30-01 (Kobyashi) Q:16 R: 14
Qualifying didn’t go according to plan for the Sauber F1 Team as, while Sergio Pérez just missed out on advancing into Q3 and was 11th, Kamui Kobayashi’s Sauber C30-Ferrari literally flew over the kerbs in the chicane in turn 10, and ended up in the wall. The team’s luck didn’t improve during the race and they left with just a single point.
Giampaolo Dall’Ara, Head of Track Engineering: “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. 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.”
