Sauber is a Swiss constructor of racing cars for
sportscar racing and
Formula One.
Their best results in Formula One were six third place finishes and
two front row starts. The team's most successful season was 2001
when they finished fourth in the constructors' championship. During
its history in Formula One, Sauber never scored a race win, pole
position, or fastest lap.
The company, previously independent, is now owned by
BMW and is known as
BMW
Sauber. BMW, however, will pull out at the end of the season,
and have agreed to sell the team back to previous owner
Peter Sauber. The sale will be conditional on
Sauber's entry in the 2010 F1 season which although not yet
confirmed, is highly likely after
Toyota pulling out after the 2009
season.
Sports cars
Since the 1970s,
Peter Sauber built
sports cars. After using turbocharged
Mercedes V8 engines in the 1980s, his team became the official
factory team of Mercedes-Benz, reviving the
Silver Arrow legend.
They won the 24 hours of Le
Mans
and the World Sportscar Championship
(1989 and
1990),
competing against Jaguar and Porsche. Amongst others, drivers like,
Heinz-Harald Frentzen,
Michael Schumacher,
Karl Wendlinger,
Jochen Mass,
Jean-Louis Schlesser and
Mauro Baldi raced for Sauber.
Sauber
participated in a number of other racing series before its
involvement in Formula One, such as the Swiss and International
Sports cars championships and the
24 hours of Le
Mans. The first Sauber car C1 was built in 1970.
Sauber, in partnership with Mercedes, won the Le Mans 24 hour race
in 1989 and the world sports car championship in 1989 and 1990 with
the
Sauber C9.
Formula One
The Mercedes Era
The 'turbo era' of
Formula One ended
with the
1988 Formula One
season. The 1.5 litre turbocharged engines were phased out in
favour of normally aspirated 3.5 litre engines. A massive demand
for engine suppliers and a constant influx of new teams saw car
manufacturers like
Subaru,
Porsche and
Lamborghini
enter Formula One as engine suppliers and sometimes buying out
existing teams. Other projects never progressed beyond design
studies, such as one carried out by
Simtek
for BMW. It was a turbulent time that led to the withdrawal of many
small teams and even more famous marques such as
Brabham and
Lotus.
A planned
Mercedes
collaboration with Sauber to enter their own Formula One team was
shelved, although behind closed doors Mercedes continued to fund
Sauber's Formula One project. The team was to be powered by V10
Ilmor engines in a chassis dubbed the C12, a continuation of
Sauber's naming policy from sports car construction (the 'C' was a
reference to Peter Sauber's wife Christine). It was to be piloted
by
Jyrki Järvilehto and
Karl Wendlinger.
The car's racing debut took place in the first race of the
1993 Formula One World Championship,
in South Africa. The car was soon turning heads not only for its
sharp FW14-like lines and striking black livery but its impressive
performance, claiming fifth place, (Two points under the scoring
system at the time) on its grand prix debut. Despite this
impressive entrance to the grand prix scene, over the remainder of
the season the team rarely saw the finish line due to unreliability
and racing accidents. However, they proved their form was not a
flash in the pan recording a slow stream of points finishes and
rarely finishing outside the top ten when they actually completed a
race distance. Despite not achieving a podium, they ended the
season with twelve points, seventh out of the thirteen original
entries.
The team went into the 1994 season as
Sauber
Mercedes, now officially Mercedes' works team with a new
car in the Sauber C13 and the Ilmor engine rebadged the Mercedes
3.5 V10. New team
Pacific Grand Prix
Ltd took a customer supply of more dated Ilmor units. Between
seasons Lehto had signed to
Mild Seven
Benetton Ford. Former Sauber sports car driver
Heinz Harald Frentzen took up the role
as Karl Wendlinger's team mate.
Early signs showed the team were, rather disappointingly,
delivering similar performances to the previous year, scoring a
small tally of points in the opening rounds. The season took a turn
for the worse when, at the race following the tragic deaths of
Ayrton Senna and
Roland Ratzenberger at the
San Marino Grand Prix Wendlinger
was seriously injured in a crash in practice for the Monaco Grand
Prix. He suffered serious head injuries and was sidelined for the
rest of the season, replaced by
Andrea
de Cesaris and a returning Lehto who had been replaced at
Benetton after injury complications.
It is interesting to note that the Wendlinger accident is a pivotal
moment in Formula One history, as the incident that, with the death
of Ayrton Senna, later prompted the mandatory implementation of
head protection for drivers in the form of high cockpit sides.
Sauber voluntarily pioneered prototypes of these to protect their
drivers.
They would finish the season with the same points tally as the
previous year but finished only eighth out of the fourteen original
entrants.
Mercedes were disastisfied with the progress
and left the team at the end of the year, enticed by an offer from
the McLaren
team, who
were still looking for a new works deal since Honda withdrew from
the sport. The partnership would see Team McLaren Mercedes
take their first win in 1997 and both titles in 1998 but left
Sauber to pick up the works Ford engine deal from Benetton.
The Ford Era
The 1995 season and Sauber C14 marked the beginning of a ten year
sponsorship deal with energy drink giants
Red
Bull. In fact entrepreneur Dietrich Mateschitz had purchased a
majority share in the team and Fritz Kaiser joined as commercial
director. They landed a factory supply of
Ford Zetec R V8s. The 1995 season saw the return
of Karl Wendlinger partnering Heinz Harald Frentzen. Unfortunately
the Austrian's serious accident in 1994 seemed to have taken a lot
out of his driving potential and he was replaced after two races by
rookie
Jean-Christophe
Boullion.
The season, for Frentzen at least, went surprisingly well. The team
finished on a record eighteen points despite the under-performing
Ford engine and Jean-Christophe Bouillon, who was again dropped
allowing Wendlinger to make his final F1 appearance. They also
climbed back up to 7th in the constructor's championship.
1995 also saw
Petronas become Sauber's
presenting sponsor. They renewed their association in 2007, by
which time the team had changed ownership.
1996 saw Sauber's worst Formula One season in terms of points
despite a promising driver lineup in Heinz Harald Frentzen and
Johnny Herbert, a revised C15 entrant
and a new V10 powerplant from Ford. Despite again holding seventh
spot on a shrinking list of constructors they only scored 11 points
and had not impressed for much of the season. For the next season
they announced a customer deal to receive Ferrari V10 engines while
they worked with new sponsors Petronas to construct their own
engines. Unfortunately, due to
a major economic crash in Asia
the engines were never completed.
The Ferrari Era
Sauber used Ferrari designed engines (from 1997 to 2005) and
gearboxes built by
Sauber Petronas
Engineering, a company founded for the sole purpose of
building these engines, that were nearly identical to the ones used
by Ferrari. Sauber licenced nearly every legally licensable part
from Ferrari and even had several Ferrari engineers on staff. Many
pointed out suspicious similarities between Ferrari and Sauber
chassis, but no formal accusations were ever made (
FIA rules require each team to design their own
chassis).
In 2001 Sauber brought a virtually unknown and very inexperienced
Kimi Räikkönen (who went on
to win 2007 Drivers Championship with
Ferrari) into Formula One, despite the
protests of a few drivers and influential members of the FIA,
including
Max Mosley, that he would pose
a danger to other drivers. His performances that year (and in the
years to come), however, more than vindicated their decision.
In 2004
Sauber spent a large sum of money on a new wind tunnel at Hinwil
, and a high
performance supercomputer (called
Albert) to help refine the aerodynamics of their
cars. The state-of-the-art infrastructure Sauber has built
up is one aspect that attracted
BMW
Motorsport to Sauber.
In its later years, Sauber's links with Ferrari became weaker. They
sided with the non-Ferrari teams over planned rule changes at the
end of the 2004 season and also joined up with
GPWC (which BMW are now involved with). Then they
decided to switch to
Michelin tyres, while
Ferrari continued to use
Bridgestones.
BMW ownership commenced from
January 1
2006. Sauber's final grand prix came in China 2005, with Massa
scoring a welcome sixth place to round off the team's history.
Sauber departed F1 with six third places and two front row starts
their best results. Amongst notable Sauber drivers were
Jean Alesi, 2008 Formula One championship
runner-up
Felipe Massa,
Johnny Herbert and 1997 World Champion
Jacques Villeneuve, who raced for
the team in its final season. Two former Sauber drivers drove for
the new
BMW Sauber team in 2006,
Nick Heidfeld who was a Sauber driver from
2001-2003 and Canadian
Jacques
Villeneuve who drove for the team in 2005.
BMW Sauber
By the end of the 2005 season the team was bought by
BMW, with Peter Sauber retaining a 20% stake, and was
renamed
BMW Sauber.
In July 2009, BMW
announced that it will withdraw from Formula One at the end of the
season, raising the prospect of a management buyout by Peter Sauber
and BMW Motorsport chief Dr Mario
Theissen, modelled on the successful takeover of the Honda team the previous year to become
Brawn
GP
.On November 27 2009, BMW agreed to sell its Formula
1 team back to Peter Sauber after the original deal with Qadbak
Investment Ltd. was not completed. This was subject to the
condition that the team had to receive an entry for 2010 Formula 1
season. The agreement also included a reduction in work force.
Participation of the team in 2010, however, remains uncertain.Peter
Sauber announced on 29th November 2009 that the teams chassis for
the 2010 season would be called the C29 and powered by Ferrari
engines.
Complete Formula One results
(
key) (results
in
bold indicate pole position)
References
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