MARCH 24, 2001
Sauber hopes to avoid Brazil fiasco of last season
SAUBER, one of only two teams not to test at Barcelona this week, have been working hard to avoid the technical problems that thwarted their performance at the Brazilian Grand Prix last year.
Sauber, who travel to Brazil again this weekend, withdrew their two drivers Mika Salo and Pedro Diniz before the start of last year's race as they had fears over the safety of the front wings of their cars.
Diniz had qualified 20th and Salo 22nd but the Sauber engineers deemed the cars too unsafe to continue.
Salo had also been disqualified from the previous race in Australia, after finishing sixth, as race stewards deemed the front wing of his car illegal.
As a result, Sauber have taken no chances this year as they have concentrated their efforts on preparing new aerodynamic parts for the Brazil race at their Hinwil base.
Meanwhile, the other team to miss Barcelona testing this week, European Minardi, treated the Malaysian Grand Prix as an extended test session as Fernando Alonso finished 13th and Tarso Marques came home 14th and last at Sepang.
The team hope to ship out three cars to Interlagos this weekend after working on reliability at their Faenza base this week.