Peter Sauber | |
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 Sauber at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in 2013 | |
| Born | 13 October 1943 Zürich, Switzerland |
| Nationality |  Swiss |
| Known for | Founder of Sauber F1 |
Peter Paul Sauber (born 13 October 1943) is a retired Swiss motorsport executive. He was the team principal and owner of various motorsports teams, most visibly the eponymous Sauber Formula One team.
After being trained as an electrician, Sauber became a car salesman in Hinwil, Switzerland. [1] This was Sauber's first real association with automobiles and it proved to be the catalyst for his involvement in motorsports. He competed in hillclimbing events in a Volkswagen Beetle he had purchased,[ citation needed ] and thus the foundations for his first project as a team owner were laid.
After opting not to run the family traffic light business, Peter built the Sauber C1 (the C stands for Christiane, the name of his wife) in his parents' basement. It was a car of tubular frame, powered by a 1-litre Ford Cosworth engine. He subsequently drove it to the 1970 Swiss hillclimb championship. It also remained in racing for ten years in the hands of other drivers, notably Friedrich Hürzeler, who took the 1974 crown in the car.
In 1971, Sauber handed over the driver's seat to Hans Kunis, who drove the new Sauber C2 model in the same series, as Sauber himself had done so the year before.
Sauber had started to gain a portfolio of customers and in 1973, Sauber built three C3 spec chassis for different customers. Designed by Guy Boisson, the car was used predominantly in the Swiss Sports Car Championship.
The C4 of 1975 heralded the first aluminium chassis developed by the team, and Boisson was joined by Edy Wiss in designing it. Only one C4 was ever produced.
The most successful of the early Sauber cars, the C5 was used to great effect in conjunction with its 2-litre BMW engine—taking the 1976 Interserie Championship in the hands of Herbert Muller.
Being a Group 6 sports car, the car was allowed to take part in the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans, and Sauber entered the C5 in both 1977 and 1978. In '77 the car led its class before retiring; the same thing happened in '78.
1979 marked the end of Sauber's first foray into sports car building – and the start of preparing chassis for Lola F2 cars. The drivers finished 1–2–4 in the championship that year – one of them was Max Welti, who subsequently joined the team as team manager.
In 1980, and 1981, Sauber and Welti turned their attention to developing BMW M1 sportscars, in the latter year it won the 1000km Nürburgring.
In 1982, with BASF sponsorship, Sauber returned to sports car racing. The C6 was the first car to be tested in a wind tunnel by Sauber. It was during these tests that Sauber built up a strong relationship with Leo Ress, who would later become instrumental in the F1 project.
In 1985, the team's relationship with Mercedes-Benz began. This sports car partnership culminated in November 1991 – having ignited the career of Michael Schumacher and Sauber's own protégé, Karl Wendlinger.
Sauber now began to look seriously at launching an F1 team. In the summer of 1991 Harvey Postlethwaite joined the team to design an F1 car and Mercedes funded a vast new factory at Hinwil.
In November 1991 Mercedes decided against direct involvement and so Sauber entered F1 by itself in 1993, with drivers JJ Lehto and Karl Wendlinger powered by engines built by Ilmor but rebadged as Saubers. Sauber did convince Mercedes to enter F1 in 1994 but a year later the German company did a deal with McLaren, leaving Sauber to become the Ford F1 works team. This was followed by a deal with the Malaysian oil company Petronas in 1995 and the establishment of an engineering company called Sauber Petronas Engineering to design and build V10 engines. The company began buying old Ferrari engines and rebadging them as Sauber Petronas V10s but the F1 engine program itself was scrapped in 1998. In the later years of this period Sauber saw increased success with the team finishing fourth in the World Championship in 2001 and fifth in 2002 despite having a much smaller budget than many of its rivals. The team however never scored a race win.
In June 2005, BMW acquired the major shareholding stake in the Sauber team from Credit Suisse, [2] which owned more than 60% of the team from a deal Peter Sauber initiated in 1994 [3] selling a majority stake of the team to its major sponsor. [4] It was done with Peter Sauber's blessing, the team was known as BMW Sauber, and Peter took a background advisory role within it, retaining a 20% stake in the team.
In July 2009, BMW announced its withdrawal from Formula One at the end of the season. Peter Sauber worked with BMW to develop a rescue package that would allow the team to continue in the sport without the manufacturer's backing. [5] Qadbak Investments Ltd were thought to have purchased the team, [6] but on 27 November 2009 it was announced that the Qadbak deal had fallen through and BMW had instead reached an agreement to sell the entire F1 operation back to Peter Sauber.
This sale would only go ahead if the team was granted a place on the 2010 grid by the FIA. [7] On 3 December 2009, the FIA announced it had confirmed Sauber's entry for the 2010 season had been granted, and Sauber regained ownership of the team. [8] In May 2012, Sauber transferred a one-third stake in the Sauber Group to Monisha Kaltenborn, the team's CEO and his designated successor. [9] In October, it was announced that Sauber was stepping back from the day-to-day running of his team, promoting Kaltenborn to the team principal's position. He remains President of the Sauber Group's board of directors. [10]
The 2016 Formula One season saw Sauber back on the grid with financial troubles. In July 2016 Longbow Finance, a Swiss investment company, bought Sauber Motorsport gaining complete ownership. With the sale, Peter Sauber announced his retirement from motorsport with Pascal Picci taking his position at the company.
Sauber is married to Christiane (for whom all of his cars are designated "C"). They have two sons: Philipp (born 1971) and Alex (born 1973). [11] Alex began working for the Sauber team in 2010. [9]
The German automobile manufacturer/brand BMW has been involved in Formula One in a number of capacities since the inauguration of the World Drivers' Championship in 1950. The company entered occasional races in the 1950s and 1960s, before building the BMW M12/13 inline-four turbocharged engine in the 1980s. This engine was the result of a deal between BMW and Brabham, which resulted in the team's chassis being powered by BMW engines from 1982 until 1987, a period in which Nelson Piquet won the 1983 championship driving a Brabham BT52-BMW. BMW also supplied the M12/13 on a customer basis to the ATS, Arrows, Benetton and Ligier teams during this period, with various degrees of success. In 1988, Brabham temporarily withdrew from the sport and BMW withdrew its official backing from the engines, which were still used by the Arrows team under the Megatron badge. Turbocharged engines were banned by the revised Formula One Technical Regulations for 1989, rendering the M12/13 obsolete.
Sauber Motorsport AG currently competing in Formula One as Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber and also known simply as Kick Sauber or Sauber, is a Swiss motorsport engineering company. It was founded in 1970 by Peter Sauber, who progressed through hillclimbing and the World Sportscar Championship to reach Formula One in 1993. Sauber operated under their own name from 1993 until 2005 and from 2011 until 2018. They were known as BMW Sauber from 2006 to 2010 and as Alfa Romeo from 2019 to 2023 in partnership deals with BMW and Alfa Romeo, respectively. Sauber returned in 2024 as Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber, and is set to be the Audi works team from 2026 onwards, with the German outfit planning to acquire the Swiss team.
Max Welti is a former Swiss racing driver, Sauber's first team manager and thus double winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans as well as two-time sports car world champion with Sauber Mercedes. Five years later, he wins the 24 Hours of Le Mans for a second time with Porsche as the responsible race director. He then returns to Sauber as overall manager of the Sauber Formula One operation. In 2000 Welti becomes CEO of the European silhouette touring car racing series "V8STAR" before becoming team owner of A1 A1 Team Switzerland in 2005. As an international motorsport strategist and consultant, Welti nowadays works for OEMs, promoters and organisers.
The 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 64th season of FIA Formula One motor racing. Red Bull Racing won its maiden Constructors' Championship with a 1–2 finish in Brazil, while Red Bull Racing's Sebastian Vettel won the Drivers' Championship after winning the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi. In doing so, Vettel became the youngest World Drivers' Champion in the 61-year history of the championship. Vettel's victory in the championship came after a dramatic season finale at Abu Dhabi where three other drivers could also have won the championship – Vettel's Red Bull Racing teammate Mark Webber, Ferrari's Fernando Alonso and McLaren's Lewis Hamilton.
The BMW Sauber F1.06, also simply known as the BMW F1.06, was the car with which the BMW Sauber team competed in the 2006 Formula One World Championship. It was driven by German Nick Heidfeld, who joined from Williams, and Canadian Jacques Villeneuve, who had spent one season with Sauber before it was bought by BMW. However, Villeneuve was replaced by third driver, Pole Robert Kubica, before the season finished. The year marked the first time that BMW had competed as a full team; previously it had only supplied engines. The chassis was designed by Willy Rampf, Jacky Eeckelaert and Seamus Mullarkey with the powertrain being designed by Heinz Paschen.
The Sauber C24 was a Formula One car built by Sauber for the 2005 season.
The 2011 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 65th season of FIA Formula One motor racing. The original calendar for the 2011 Formula One World Championship consisted of twenty rounds, including the inaugural running of the Indian Grand Prix before the cancellation of the Bahrain Grand Prix. Pirelli returned to the sport as tyre supplier for all teams, taking over from Bridgestone, marking their return to Formula One for the first time since the 1991 season.
The BMW Sauber F1.08 was the Formula One racing car with which the BMW Sauber team competed in the 2008 Formula One World Championship. The chassis was designed by Willy Rampf, Walter Reidl, Christoph Zimmermann and Willem Toet with the powertrain being designed by Markus Duesmann.
The Sauber C22 was the car with which the Sauber Petronas team competed in the 2003 Formula One World Championship.
Esteban Manuel Gutiérrez Gutiérrez is a Mexican racing driver. His most recent races were the 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship for Glickenhaus Racing and the 2023 IMSA SportsCar Championship for CrowdStrike Racing by APR. He is also a development driver for Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team and the CEO-Founder of EDASI Drive, the official F1 merchandising distributor for Latin America.
The Brawn BGP 001 is a Formula One world championship winning racing car, the design of which was started by Honda Racing, and completed and then built by the team after it was renamed to Brawn GP. It was the first and only Formula One car constructed by the Brawn GP team, and was used to contest the 2009 Formula One season. The car won eight out of the seventeen Grands Prix it competed in. It was notable for its unusual double diffuser, and its legality was disputed, though it was ultimately deemed legal by the FIA.
The FIA–FOTA dispute was a series of political clashes between the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) and the now defunct Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) over proposed changes to the rules and regulations for the 2010 Formula One season. The debate began over the introduction of a budget cap and culminated on the eve of the 2009 British Grand Prix with the FOTA teams announcing their intention to form their own rival breakaway series. From that point onwards, the dispute was eased to the point at which a new Concorde Agreement was signed in August 2009.
Mercedes-Benz, a German luxury automotive brand of the Mercedes-Benz Group, has been involved in Formula One as both team owner and engine manufacturer for various periods since 1954. The current Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team is based in Brackley, England, and possesses a German licence. An announcement was made in December 2020 that Ineos planned to take a one third equal ownership stake alongside the Mercedes-Benz Group and Toto Wolff; this came into effect on 25 January 2022. Mercedes-branded teams are often referred to by the nickname, the "Silver Arrows".
The Sauber C29 was a Formula One racing car which was used by the BMW Sauber F1 Team in the 2010 Formula One season. It was unveiled on January 31, at Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia.
Stefan Grand Prix was a proposed Serbian Formula One team named after its creator, Zoran Stefanović. The team was attempting to compete in the 2010 Formula One World Championship. Its initial application was one of those rejected in July 2009 and although the team persisted in its attempts to gain an entry, it did not appear on the final entry list published in March 2010. The team also applied unsuccessfully to compete in the 2011 and 2015 seasons.
Sauber Petronas Engineering AG (SPE) was a company owned jointly by the Swiss racing car manufacturer Sauber (60%) and the Malaysian oil company Petronas (40%). It was founded in 1996 for the purpose of supplying engines to the Sauber Formula One team but at the same time the company began work on the design of production car engines for the Malaysian national car company Proton. The company also helped develop racing motorcycles like Petronas GP1.
Monisha Kaltenborn is the Austrian former team principal of the Sauber Formula One team. She held a 33.3% stake in the outfit, until it was taken over by Longbow Finance S.A. in July 2016. She was the team's chief executive officer from January 2010 until 22 June 2017. She was the first female team principal in Formula One.
The Sauber C36 is a Formula One racing car designed and constructed by Sauber to compete during the 2017 FIA Formula One World Championship. The car was driven by Marcus Ericsson and Pascal Wehrlein, who joined the team after Felipe Nasr left the team at the end of the 2016 season. Antonio Giovinazzi drove the car in Wehrlein's place after a pre-season injury saw Wehrlein withdraw from the opening two rounds of the season as a precaution. The C36 made its competitive début at the 2017 Australian Grand Prix, and uses a 2016-specification Ferrari engine.
John Owen is a British Formula One engineer. He is currently the chief designer at the Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport Formula One team.
The BMW E41 and P80 series is a family of naturally-aspirated Formula One racing engines, designed and developed by BMW, and introduced in 2000 in partnership with Williams, and continued through 2006, during their partnership with Sauber.
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