Peter Sauber's team won Le Mans in 1989, scored its first Formula One podium in 1995, ran a BMW factory effort and passed to Audi for 2026.
Sauber Motorsport was a Swiss team founded by Peter Sauber in 1970 as PP Sauber AG. It raced sports cars, won the 1989 Le Mans with Mercedes-Benz, and competed in Formula One from 1993 until 2025, when Audi's takeover paved the way for a factory entry.
Sauber Motorsport was a Swiss race team and engineering company that Peter Sauber founded in 1970. It won the 1989 24 Hours of Le Mans with Mercedes-Benz, entered Formula One in 1993 and competed there until 2025, when Audi took over the team to form its factory entry for 2026.
How did Peter Sauber start the team?
Peter Sauber founded PP Sauber AG in 1970, and his first car, the C1, was built in his parents' garage for the 1970 Swiss Sports Car Championship. Every car was given a C-number in honour of his wife, Christiane, which became the team's naming habit for years.
The C5 made the team's FIA debut at the 1977 24 Hours of Le Mans. It also won the 1976 Interserie Championship with Swiss driver Herbert Muller, and Sauber won the 1979 Swiss Formula Three Championship, which showed the team could compete beyond its home market.
A Swiss garage project that won Le Mans in 1989, produced Formula One's future and passed to Audi for 2026.
How strong were Sauber's sports cars?
The C4 won a race in the 1975 European 2-Litre Sportscar Championship, and the BMW M1 Sauber won the 1981 Nurburgring 1000km with Hans-Joachim Stuck and Nelson Piquet. That result came after Sauber radically redesigned the frame and cut weight for the Group 5 rules.
The SHS C6, designed with the Swiss firm Seger & Hoffmann, took fifth in the 1982 World Sportscar Championship for Manufacturers. The C7 followed and finished ninth overall at the 1983 Le Mans, and its performance disrupted Porsche's domination of the top ten.
Mercedes-Benz then returned to sports car racing with Sauber. The C8 was adapted to a Mercedes turbocharged V8 and won the 1986 Nurburgring 1000km, while the C9 set a Le Mans lap record with Johnny Dumfries in 1987.
What did the 1988 and 1989 seasons deliver?
In 1988 Mercedes gave the project full factory support, and the team became Team Sauber Mercedes. The C9s took five wins in the 1988 World Sportscar Championship, but two cars were withdrawn from Le Mans after tyre blowouts in practice on safety grounds.
The 1989 season was the peak of the sports car years. The team won the 24 Hours of Le Mans overall, and Jean-Louis Schlesser won the drivers' title with five wins. The C11 was due to replace the C9 for 1990, but a longer development timeline meant the older car was still needed for the season opener.
In 1990 the team clinched the teams' championship with more than double the points of Silk Cut Jaguar. Its junior drivers also made their mark, and Michael Schumacher won at Mexico City for the junior team, alongside Karl Wendlinger and Heinz-Harald Frentzen.
The 1991 Group C challenge was harder. The C291 used a bespoke Mercedes M291 flat-12 engine, suffered reliability problems and won only one race. The C292 that followed was never raced, because Mercedes pulled its support on financial grounds during testing.
How did Sauber enter Formula One in 1993?
Sauber had wanted to enter Formula One in direct collaboration with Mercedes, but that joint project was shelved and Mercedes funded an engine contract instead. The team rebadged Ilmor V10 engines as Sauber power units, and the C12 spent much of 1992 testing across Europe before its debut.
JJ Lehto qualified sixth and finished fifth on debut at the 1993 South African Grand Prix, which earned two points in a race of attrition. The team finished seventh in the Constructors' Championship that year, ahead of independents including Minardi and Jordan, and that result made Sauber a credible entrant.
Mercedes joined the team as an official partner in 1994, and the renamed Sauber-Mercedes slipped to eighth overall. The season also brought tragedy. Karl Wendlinger was seriously injured in a practice crash at the Monaco Grand Prix, and Andrea de Cesaris stood in as relief driver. High cockpit side walls were added after the crashes, and they later became mandatory.
What did the Red Bull and Ford era bring?
In 1995 Sauber signed a ten-year sponsorship deal with Red Bull, and the entrepreneur Dietrich Mateschitz bought a majority share in the team. Frentzen led the team to its largest tally in Formula One with 18 points, and his third place at the 1995 Italian Grand Prix was the team's first podium.
In 1996 the team struggled with the uncompetitive Cosworth JD V10. It scored only 11 points and finished seventh among the constructors, but Johnny Herbert took a third place at the 1996 Monaco Grand Prix. The team then announced a customer deal with Ferrari for 1997.
| Season | Team name | Headline result |
|---|---|---|
| 1981 | BMW M1 Sauber | Nurburgring 1000km win with Stuck and Piquet |
| 1989 | Team Sauber Mercedes | 24 Hours of Le Mans overall win |
| 1990 | Team Sauber Mercedes | Teams' world championship with more than double the points of Silk Cut Jaguar |
| 1993 | Sauber | Lehto fifth on debut; seventh in the Constructors' Championship |
| 1995 | Sauber | Frentzen third at Monza; 18 points, the team's largest tally |
| 1997 | Sauber Petronas | First Sauber-Petronas podium, third at the Hungarian Grand Prix |
| 2006 | BMW Sauber | Heidfeld's first podium at Hungary from tenth on the grid |
| 2007 | BMW Sauber | Second in the Constructors' Championship |
| 2008 | BMW Sauber | Kubica wins the Canadian Grand Prix; the team's first win |
| 2012 | Sauber | Perez second at Malaysia; 20 points at Germany |
| 2018 | Alfa Romeo Sauber | Eighth in the Constructors' Championship with 48 points |
| 2019 | Alfa Romeo Racing | 57 points and eighth overall; fourth and fifth in Brazil |
| 2024 | Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber | Tenth overall with four points |
| 2025 | Kick Sauber | Hulkenberg third at the British Grand Prix |
How did the Sauber-Petronas years play out?
Between 1997 and 2005 the team ran Ferrari-based customer engines, assembled by Sauber Petronas Engineering, a firm created for that task. The first podium for the Sauber-Petronas name came at the 1997 Hungarian Grand Prix, when the team took third, and a second podium followed with third at the 1998 Belgian Grand Prix.
In 2001 Sauber gave a debut to the inexperienced Kimi Raikkonen, despite protests from some drivers and members of the FIA, including Max Mosley. Raikkonen's performances vindicated the decision, but the move caused Red Bull to sell its majority share in the team to Credit Suisse in protest. In 2004 the team also built a new wind tunnel at Hinwil.
As an independent constructor the team finished with six third places and two front-row starts as its best results. Felipe Massa scored a sixth place at the 2005 Chinese Grand Prix, his last race for the team before he moved to Ferrari.
Why did BMW buy Sauber?
BMW bought the majority shareholding at the end of 2005, while Peter Sauber kept a 20% stake. The team raced as BMW Sauber from 2006 to 2009, and it held a German licence during that period before reverting to a Swiss one in 2010.
The 2006 season brought Nick Heidfeld's first podium at the Hungarian Grand Prix, where he started tenth. Robert Kubica took the team's second podium of the season at the Italian Grand Prix, and Jacques Villeneuve scored the team's first points with seventh at the Malaysian Grand Prix.
The team finished second in the 2007 Constructors' Championship, with Heidfeld second at the Canadian Grand Prix that season. In 2008 Kubica took the team's first pole position in Bahrain, and the team went on to win the Canadian Grand Prix with a one-two, its first race victory.
BMW pulled out at the end of 2009, and Peter Sauber bought the team back for one euro. The team stayed on the grid as BMW Sauber until the end of 2010 because the name had not yet been changed.
What happened when Sauber became independent again?
From 2010 Sauber was an independent constructor again, using customer Ferrari engines. Kamui Kobayashi finished seventh at the 2010 European Grand Prix, and Sergio Perez took second at the 2012 Malaysian Grand Prix, the team's best result as an independent.
The 2012 season was the strongest of this era. Kobayashi finished fourth at the German Grand Prix, and the team scored 20 points that weekend, its best total since the split from BMW. At Belgium Kobayashi started second and Perez fourth, the best grid positions in the team's history.
The team struggled later. In 2014 it failed to score a single point for the first time in its history. In 2016 Longbow Finance bought the shares of Peter Sauber and Monisha Kaltenborn, and the only points of that season came from Felipe Nasr's ninth at the Brazilian Grand Prix. Financial pressure had been building for years, and the team was often unable to pay salaries on time.
A driver dispute with Giedo van der Garde also reached the courts in 2015. It ended with a settlement of US$16 million, which the team paid to remove his claim to a race seat.
How did the Alfa Romeo years go?
Alfa Romeo became title sponsor in 2018, and the team finished eighth in the Constructors' Championship with 48 points. Charles Leclerc drove for the team that year before leaving for Ferrari, and the team rebranded as Alfa Romeo Racing for 2019.
The 2019 team scored 57 points and finished eighth again. The highlight came in Brazil, where a collision between Alexander Albon and Lewis Hamilton promoted both Alfa Romeo cars into the top five, with Kimi Raikkonen fourth and Antonio Giovinazzi fifth for 22 points.
The team slipped to eight points in 2020 and 13 in 2021. Valtteri Bottas then took fifth at Imola in 2022, and that season brought the team's best Constructors' finish since 2012. Andreas Seidl became chief executive from January 2023, and the Stake and Kick sponsors arrived that year.
How did the final years and the Audi takeover unfold?
The team raced as Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber in 2024, and it finished tenth with four points. In 2025 Nico Hulkenberg took third at the British Grand Prix, his first podium after 239 race starts and Sauber's first podium since the 2012 Japanese Grand Prix.
Audi bought the team in 2024 and will race it as the Audi factory team from 2026, using Audi power units. That ended a customer engine relationship with Ferrari that had lasted since the 2010 season. Jonathan Wheatley joined as team principal on 1 April 2025, and the team announced a new technical centre in the United Kingdom, with Bicester chosen as the site.
What is Sauber's legacy?
Sauber's legacy is a team that began in a family garage, won Le Mans with Mercedes-Benz in 1989 and gave young drivers their first serious chances. Frentzen, Raikkonen and Massa all came through the team, and the squad's engineering ideas reached the wider sport.
The team also pioneered technical ideas that later became standard. Its high cockpit side walls are one example, and the twin keel front suspension and longitudinally mounted gearboxes are others. Even as Audi takes over, the Hinwil base remains the centre of the team's chassis work.
