F1 News
- May 5, 2006
Sauber (BMW)
The Sauber (now BMW Sauber) team is a relative newcomer to the F1 community, however the heritage of the company is quite extensive.
The company (named after it's owner Peter Sauber) originally made sports cars in the 70's using turbo charged Mercedes engines. The team was taken up by the Mercedes company and in the 80's raced Le Mans cars under the Mercedes name with decent levels of success (they won Le Mans in 1989).
In 1993 Peter Sauber decided to try his hand at F1, and the team had instant success with JJ Lehto finishing 5th in the teams first event. This however was unfortunately for the team a 'flash in the pan' and the team struggled to match the might and budgets of F1's big players.
Sauber has a lot to thank Ferrari for it's F1 project. Up until this year the team ran re-badged Ferrari engines and gearboxes (branded as Sauber-Petronas). The reason the team had it's own Ferrari engines is due to the rules of F1, that says that a team is not allowed to copy another teams chassis, the problem here was the gearbox and engines are integral parts to modern F1 chassis, so the Petronas partnership licenced everything allowed, and built the remaining parts, they even had Ferrari members of staff on the books to help. The rule has since been modified to allow 'customer' engines, and from 2008 it is expected 'customer' chassis's will be allowed in the sport to help reduce costs.
Sauber has helped bring the immensely talented Kimi Raikkonen through into the for, as Peter Sauber brought him on board in 2001. The team has also helped the careers of ailing drivers like Jacques Villeneuve.
The team has now changed hands and is completely owned and operated by the BMW Group, this after a huge investment into improving the aero package of the car that has lead to one of the best wind tunnels in Hinwil and most powerful computers (called Albert) of any of the teams.
The purchase of the team by BMW was possibly well timed as the company had started to disagree with the Ferrari camp on some of the rule changes, and even changed to the Michelin tyres away from the Ferrari Bridgestone tyre, so how long the agreement for the engine would have lasted if BMW had not become involved is up for debate.
The team is now officially called the BMW-Sauber team, however Peter Sauber still helps out on day to day running.
