37 Facts About Sauber Motorsport

In March 2010, Peter Sauber Motorsport announced plans to change the team name during the season but the FIA announced that they would have to wait until the end of the season to change their name.

Sauber Motorsport participated in a number of other racing series before its involvement in Formula One, including the Swiss Sportscar Championship and the World Sportscar Championship.

Sauber Motorsport suffered serious head injuries which left him in a coma for weeks and he was sidelined for the rest of the season.

Sauber Motorsport was replaced by Andrea de Cesaris and a returning Lehto who had been replaced at Benetton after injury complications.

Sauber Motorsport voluntarily pioneered prototypes of these to protect their drivers.

Related searches

Sauber Motorsport licensed nearly every legally licensable part from Ferrari and even had several Ferrari engineers on staff.

In 2001, Sauber Motorsport brought a virtually unknown and very inexperienced Kimi Raikkonen 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.

In 2004, Sauber Motorsport spent a large sum of money on a new wind tunnel at Hinwil, and a high performance supercomputer 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.

Sauber Motorsport had finished its independent run in F1 with six third places and two front-row starts being their best results.

Amongst notable Sauber Motorsport drivers were Jean Alesi, 2008 Drivers' Championship runner-up Felipe Massa, Johnny Herbert, and 1997 World Champion Jacques Villeneuve.

BMW Sauber Motorsport team introduced a new scheme for the team as a whole, with every individual getting "fit for pole", from the boss to the cleaners, meaning that the team would be in optimum fitness for the 2008 season.

BMW Sauber Motorsport started the season well with Kubica narrowly missing out on pole after a mistake in his main qualifying lap in Melbourne.

Sauber Motorsport later retired after being hit by Kazuki Nakajima but Heidfeld finished second.

Heidfeld then secured the team's first podium of the year in Malaysia, but after six races BMW Sauber Motorsport had collected a mere six points, and occupied eighth place in the Constructors' Championship out of ten teams.

On 15 September 2009, it was announced that BMW Sauber Motorsport had secured a buyer, Qadbak Investments Limited which turned to be a shell company.

On 3 December 2009, the FIA confirmed that Sauber Motorsport had been granted the entry vacated by Toyota Racing following their withdrawal and would be using Ferrari engines.

However, in January 2010, Peter Sauber Motorsport had said that he had not yet applied for a change of name, so therefore they remained for the season as BMW Sauber Motorsport F1 Team despite zero BMW components.

Perez achieved his second podium of the season at the Canadian Grand Prix with third place, while Kobayashi added a ninth place to help Sauber Motorsport move up to sixth place in the Constructors' Championship.

Kobayashi's Sauber Motorsport was damaged and he finished the race in 13th place.

At the Italian Grand Prix, Sauber Motorsport scored 20 points; Perez used a one-stop strategy to move from twelfth on the grid to take his third podium of the season with second place, while Kobayashi finished in ninth place.

Kobayashi took his first podium finish and the team's fourth of the season at the Japanese Grand Prix; the following week, it was announced that Peter Sauber Motorsport was stepping back from the daily management of his team, handing the role of team principal to Kaltenborn.

Sauber Motorsport breached the contract when the team instead signed Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson as announced in November 2014.

Just prior to the Australian Grand Prix held on 13 to 15 March 2015, van der Garde applied to an Australian court who ordered, at first instance on 11 March and on 12 March following Sauber Motorsport's failed appeal, that he be permitted to race in Melbourne.

On 23 July 2015, Sauber Motorsport confirmed that Ericsson and Nasr would be retained for 2016.

Related searches

On 11 November 2016, Sauber Motorsport announced Ericsson would remain with the team in 2017.

Sauber Motorsport's role was replaced by former Renault team principal Frederic Vasseur.

However, on 27 July 2017, it was announced that Sauber Motorsport had cancelled their planned partnership with Honda for 2018 onwards for "strategic reasons".

The following day Sauber Motorsport confirmed their new multi-year agreement with Ferrari for up-to-date engines starting in 2018.

On 29 November 2017, Sauber Motorsport announced that they had signed a multi-year technical and commercial partnership contract with Alfa Romeo, therefore the team was renamed to Alfa Romeo Sauber Motorsport F1 Team for the 2018 season onwards.

Sauber Motorsport finished the season with a respectable 48 points finishing in eighth position on the Constructors Table.

In September 2018, Sauber Motorsport confirmed that Kimi Raikkonen would be swapping places with Charles Leclerc for the 2019 season, after Leclerc was announced to race for Ferrari in 2019.

On 1 February 2019, Sauber Motorsport announced that it would compete in the 2019 season as "Alfa Romeo Racing" although the ownership, racing licence and management structure would remain unchanged.

Sauber Motorsport ensured that he will maintain links with Alfa Romeo and Sauber.

Sauber Motorsport are due to end their relationship with Alfa Romeo at the end of 2023, after deciding not to renew the agreement.

In November 2018, Sauber Motorsport entered a partnership with Czech team Charouz Racing System to form the Sauber Motorsport Junior Team, followed by the creation of a karting team in March 2019.

In 2020, Sauber Motorsport relaunched the junior team as Sauber Motorsport Academy and parted ways with Charouz.