Sauber’s Last Lap in F1 - The End of an Era

As the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and the end of the season approaches, so does the end of the Saubers history in Formula. So in honour of Sauber, let’s have a look into the teams past, present and future.

(Image credit to Sania Zimmermann)

About the company

Sauber Motorsport is a Swiss racing team founded by Peter Sauber in 1970 with its headquarters in Hinwil in the canton of Zürich. The successful team was very much known for its strong affiliations throughout the years. Having started out as PP Sauber AG, a business to build sportscars, they produced sportscars for hillclimbing and endurance racing until 1993. Meanwhile, the team competed in Group C of the World Sportscar Championship from 1982 until 1991. With a strong connection to Mercedes-Benz (formerly known as Daimler-Benz) during the World Sportscar Championship, the team of Sauber managed to clinch the entrance into F1 back in 1993.

History in F1

Sauber Petronas (1995 - 2005) 

Having started in 1993, Sauber’s engine was supported by Mercedes. With a brief stint from the Ford Factory Team in 1995 and 1996, it turned into Red Bull Sauber. In 1995, Petronas became Sauber’s presenting sponsor. The legendary Red Bull Sauber Petronas was born with a teal and blue livery. Even after Ford left, the livery and sponsors stayed. They went on to be operated as an independent constructor called Sauber Petronas Engineering AG, which was founded in 1996 by Peter Sauber and Willy Rampf. During the Sauber Petronas days, the team used Ferrari customer engines (from 1997 to 2005). With the teal era, Saubero also brought along unknown Kimi Räikkönen, which many officials protested. Red Bull even sold their majority share in the team to Credit Suisse (now UBS) in protest of the decision before completely leaving Sauber as a sponsor in 2001. In 2004, Sauber spent a large sum of money on a new wind tunnel in Hinwil and a high performance supercomputer (called Albert) to help refine the aerodynamics of their cars. The infrastructure that Sauber built up is one big aspect that attracted BMW Motorsport to Sauber until Sauber was purchased in 2005 by them.

BMW Sauber (2006 - 2009)

As BMW Sauber from 2006 - 2009, the team achieved its best results in Formula 1. However, the team struggled to adapt to the 2009’s regulation changes and BMW announced its withdrawal mid-season. The reason for that was the global financial crisis. After heavy speculation around the team, BMW sold the team back to founder Peter Sauber for only one euro. 

Sauber (2010 - 2017)

Sauber then returned again as an independent constructor and used Ferrari engines from 2010 - 2017. Starting from fall 2012, Sauber elected the first ever female F1 Team Principal, Monisha Kaltenborn. After a five year stint with the team, she stepped down in 2017 and was replaced by former Renault and now Ferrari team principal Frédéric Vasseur. In early 2018, Sauber would end their engine deal with Ferrari and planned to bring on a new one with Honda, however this never happened since the planned partnership was cancelled due to “strategic reasons” ahead of the season. In search of a new engine, Sauber signed back with Ferrari and announced a multi-year technical and commercial partnership contract with Alfa Romeo.

Alfa Romeo (2018 - 2023)

Starting the 2018 season with the name Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team, the team recruited now Scuderia Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc for his first ever season in F1. To finish up their driver pairing, they also signed Marcus Ericsson. Despite racing under the Alfa Romeo name, Swiss racing licence and management structure remained unchanged. Kimi Räikkönen returned to the Swiss racing team from 2019 onwards, paired with Antonio Giovinazzi as his teammate as Leclerc left for Ferrari and Ericsson became their test and reserve driver. In 2020, the season went on but with COVID-19 regulations and fewer races. Ericsson also left the team to fully focus on IndyCar. For 2021, the driver pairing stayed the same with the same regulations applying. After Räikkönen announced his retirement from Formula One and Alfa Romeo decided to not keep Antonio Giovinazzi for another season, the team signed former Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas and rookie Zhou Guanyu for 2022. Around the Belgian Grand Prix, Alfa Romeo announced that the partnership would end at the end of the 2023 season and in the same year around October, it was announced that Sauber and Audi would unite starting from the 2026 season. The 2023 went on with the same driver pair and it would be after this year that a new era gets introduced.

Kick Sauber (2024 - 2025)

On the first of January, Sauber revealed their new race team name, Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber. The team faced issues with this branding as the advertising of “Stake” is banned in select countries due to its affiliation with gambling. This meant at certain races, the brand could not appear on team kit or car chassis. The 2024 season for Bottas and Zhou was a bit of a mess with a lot of pit stop problems and only 4 points scored, which Zhou got with a P8 at the Qatar Grand Prix. On April 24th it was announced that Nico Hülkenberg would leave Haas at the end of the season and join Sauber for their last year in the fiery green and black livery. In November the second seat was announced, which turned out to belong to F2 champion Gabriel Bortoleto who would be stepping up into F1. Zhou went on to be a Ferrari reserve driver, while Bottas went back to his former team, Mercedes, as a reserve driver. The 2025 season has been an emotional rollercoaster for the team, with Nico Hülkenberg achieving his maiden podium and Gabriel Bortoleto his first points in Formula 1. 

What comes for the future?

At the end of July in 2024, Sauber announced that former Ferrari engineer Mattia Binotto would join Sauber and replace Andreas Seidl from the first of August on. Binotto will also take over the role of the lead director in the Formula One project by Audi. Jonathan Wheatly, former Red Bull sporting director, was also announced to be a future Team Principal in the team. Audi will also have three locations for their F1 team. They’ll still use Hinwil as the primary location but will also have one in Neuburg an der Donau, Germany as well as a new one in Bicester, around Silverstone in the UK. The locations all get used for different purposes. Hinwil is used for the development of the chassis and racecar, Neuburg will be used for the development of the Audi Power Unit and the one in Bicester is an operations base for race control. The driver lineup will also stay the same for the foreseeable future and it will definitely be exciting to see how the drivers and team will develop.

Article written by Sania Zimmermann © Sania Zimmermann 2025