Sauber

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Sauber
Full name Sauber PETRONAS
Base Hinwil, Switzerland
Team principal Flag of Switzerland Peter Sauber (1993-2005)
Debut 1993 South African Grand Prix
Final Race 2005 Chinese Grand Prix
Races competed 206
Constructors' Championships none
Drivers' Championships none
Race victories 0
Pole positions 0
Fastest laps 0
2005 position 8th (20 points)

Sauber is a Swiss constructor of racing cars for sportscar racing and Formula One. The company, previously independent, is now owned by BMW and is known as BMW Sauber.

Contents

[edit] 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 sports car championship, competing against Jaguar and Porsche. Among others, drivers like Michael Schumacher, Heinz-Harald Frentzen, 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.

[edit] Formula One - The Mercedes Era

Giancarlo Fisichella driving for the Sauber team at the 2004 US Grand Prix at Indianapolis.
Giancarlo Fisichella driving for the Sauber team at the 2004 US Grand Prix at Indianapolis.

The 'turbo era' of Formula One ended with the 1988 Formula One season. The 1.5 litre turbo powered cars phased out for normally aspirated 3.5 litre engines. A massive demand for engine suppliers and a constant influx of new teams saw car manufacturers like Honda, Subaru, Porsche and Lamborghini enter Formula One, sometimes exclusively as engine suppliers to existing teams and sometimes building their own team from scratch. 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 badged as 'Sauber Engines' in a chassis dubbed the C12, a continuation of Sauber's naming policy from sports car construction. It was to be piloted by Jyrki Jarvilehto (J.J. Lehto) and Karl Wendlinger.

The car's racing debut took place in the first race of the 1993 Formula One World Championship, in Cape Town, 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.

Jacques Villeneuve's 2005 Sauber Petronas C24
Jacques Villeneuve's 2005 Sauber Petronas C24

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 Ratzenburger 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.

[edit] Formula One-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.[1] 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 Bouillon.

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.

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.

[edit] Formula One-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 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.

Jacques Villeneuve driving for Sauber at the 2005 US GP.
Jacques Villeneuve driving for Sauber at the 2005 US GP.

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 1st 2006. Sauber's final grand prix came in China 2005, Felipe 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, 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.

[edit] Complete Formula One Results

(key) (results in bold indicate pole position)

Year Chassis/Engine/
Tyres
Drivers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Points WCC
1993 C12
Ilmor V10
G
RSA BRA EUR SMR ESP MON CAN FRA GBR GER HUN BEL ITA POR JPN AUS 12 7th
Flag of Austria Wendlinger Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret 13 6 Ret Ret 9 6 Ret 4 5 Ret 15
Flag of Finland JJ Lehto 5 Ret Ret 4 Ret Ret 7 Ret 8 Ret Ret 9 Ret 7 8 Ret
1994 C13
Mercedes V10
G
BRA PFC SMR MON ESP CAN FRA GBR GER HUN BEL ITA POR EUR JPN AUS 12 8th
Flag of Austria Wendlinger 6 Ret 4 DNQ Inj Inj Inj Inj Inj Inj Inj Inj Inj Inj Inj Inj
Flag of Italy de Cesaris Ret 6 Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret
Flag of Finland JJ Lehto Ret 10
Flag of Germany Frentzen Ret 5 7 WD Ret Ret 4 7 Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret 6 6 7
1995 C14
Ford V8
G
BRA ARG SMR ESP MON CAN FRA GBR GER HUN BEL ITA POR EUR PFC JPN AUS 18 7th
Flag of Austria Wendlinger Ret Ret Ret 13 10 Ret
Flag of France Boullion 8 Ret Ret 9 5 10 11 6 12 Ret Ret
Flag of Germany Frentzen Ret 5 6 8 6 Ret 10 6 Ret 5 4 3 6 Ret 7 8 Ret
1996 C15
Ford V10
G
AUS BRA ARG EUR SMR MON ESP CAN FRA GBR GER HUN BEL ITA POR JPN 11 7th
Flag of United Kingdom Herbert DNS Ret 9 7 Ret 3 Ret 7 DSQ 9 Ret Ret Ret 9 8 10
Flag of Germany Frentzen 8 Ret Ret Ret Ret 4 4 Ret Ret 8 8 Ret Ret Ret 7 6
1997 C16
Petronas V10*
G
AUS BRA ARG SMR MON ESP CAN FRA GBR GER HUN BEL ITA AUT LUX JPN EUR 16 7th
Flag of United Kingdom Herbert Ret 7 4 Ret Ret 5 5 8 Ret Ret 3 4 Ret 8 7 6 8
Flag of Italy Larini 6 11 Ret 7 Ret
Flag of Italy Morbidelli 14 10 Inj Inj Inj Ret 9 12 9 9 DNS Inj
Flag of Argentina Fontana Ret 9 9 14
1998 C17
Petronas V10*
G
AUS BRA ARG SMR ESP MON CAN FRA GBR AUT GER HUN BEL ITA LUX JPN 10 6th
Flag of France Alesi Ret 9 5 6 10 12 Ret 7 Ret Ret 10 7 3 5 10 7
Flag of United Kingdom Herbert 6 11 Ret Ret 7 7 Ret 8 Ret 8 Ret 10 Ret Ret Ret 10
1999 C18
Petronas V10*
B
AUS BRA SMR MON ESP CAN FRA GBR AUT GER HUN BEL ITA EUR MYS JPN 5 8th
Flag of France Alesi Ret Ret 6 Ret Ret Ret Ret 14 Ret 8 16 9 9 Ret 7 6
Flag of Brazil Diniz Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret 6 Ret 6 6 Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret 11
2000 C19
Petronas V10*
B
AUS BRA SMR GBR ESP EUR MON CAN FRA AUT GER HUN BEL ITA USA JPN MYS 6 8th
Flag of Brazil Diniz Ret WD 8 11 Ret 7 Ret 10 11 9 Ret Ret 11 8 8 11 Ret
Flag of Finland Salo DSQ WD 6 8 7 Ret 5 Ret 10 6 5 10 9 7 Ret 10 8
2001 C20
Petronas V10*
B
AUS MYS BRA SMR ESP AUT MON CAN EUR FRA GBR GER HUN BEL ITA USA JPN 21 4th
Flag of Germany Heidfeld 4 Ret 3 7 6 9 Ret Ret Ret 6 6 Ret 6 Ret 11 6 9
Flag of Finland Räikkönen 6 Ret Ret Ret 8 4 10 4 10 7 5 Ret 7 DNS 7 Ret Ret
2002 C21
Petronas V10*
B
AUS MYS BRA SMR ESP AUT MON CAN EUR GBR FRA GER HUN BEL ITA USA JPN 11 5th
Flag of Germany Heidfeld Ret 5 Ret 10 4 Ret 8 12 7 6 7 6 9 10 10 9 7
Flag of Brazil Massa Ret 6 Ret 8 5 Ret Ret 9 6 9 Ret 7 7 Ret Ret Ret
Flag of Germany Frentzen 13
2003 C22
Petronas V10*
B
AUS MYS BRA SMR ESP AUT MON CAN EUR FRA GBR GER HUN ITA USA JPN 19 6th
Flag of Germany Heidfeld Ret 8 Ret 10 10 Ret 11 Ret 8 13 17 10 9 9 5 9
Flag of Germany Frentzen 6 9 5 11 Ret DNS Ret Ret 9 12 12 Ret Ret 13 3 Ret
2004 C23
Petronas V10*
B
AUS MYS BHR SMR ESP MON EUR CAN USA FRA GBR GER HUN BEL ITA CHN JPN BRA 34 6th
Flag of Italy Fisichella 10 11 11 9 7 Ret 6 4 9 12 6 9 8 5 8 7 8 9
Flag of Brazil Massa Ret 8 12 10 9 5 9 Ret Ret 13 9 13 Ret 4 12 8 9 8
2005 C24
Petronas V10*
M
AUS MYS BHR SMR ESP MON EUR CAN USA FRA GBR GER HUN TUR ITA BEL BRA JPN CHN 20 8th
Flag of Canada Villeneuve 13 Ret 11 4 Ret 11 13 9 DNS 8 14 15 Ret 11 11 6 12 12 10
Flag of Brazil Massa 10 10 7 10 11 9 14 4 DNS Ret 10 8 14 Ret 9 10 11 10 6

* denotes Ferrari engine badged as Petronas

[edit] BMW-Sauber

The team was renamed BMW Sauber for 2006 after being bought by BMW.

[edit] External links

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Flag of Switzerland Sauber

Sportscars: C1 | C2 | C3 | C4 | C5 | SHS C6 | C7 | C8 | C9 | C11 | C291 | C292

Formula One cars: C12 | C13 | C14 | C15 | C16 | C17 | C18 | C19 | C20 | C21 | C22 | C23 | C24 | C25