The Big Transformation Around Sauber F1 Team

Even though nothing is happening inside the tracks, many things are happening outside the track, during this off-season of Formula 1. Even though Sauber is not a top team, it became a hot topic in the latter part of the 2023 season as they were ready for a big transformation ahead of the upcoming season.

After spending six seasons with Sauber as the title sponsor, Alfa Romeo left the Hinwil based team, looking for a new home. But it was not an easy job for the Italian car manufacturer as no team was ready to change its title entirely for them. That means, Alfa Romeo will disappear from the F1 grid from the next season onward.

However, Sauber recently revealed its new name for the 2024 F1 championship, opening a huge discussion about it. Sauber team is now formally called as "Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber" because of its sponsorship deals with gambling company Stake, and streaming service Kick. However, this wordy new name has been subjected to heavy criticism from different parties, describing it as the ugliest team name ever in Formula 1 history. Most probably, the team will be simply called as Sauber, even in future as well, despite of their marketing strategy. Actually, Stake is the only title sponsor of the team and Kick has reserved a space in its official entry name by rebranding the Sauber chassis as KICK Sauber C44. These two deals will run till the end of the 2025 season and after that, Audi will take the full control of the Swiss racing outfit.

The official entry name is not the only surprise from Sauber as they are preparing for their first-ever UK launch. Within its decades-long history, Sauber has unveiled their new challengers in countries like Austria, Germany and most often at its home, Switzerland. But they are going to break this tradition with marketing strategies in their mind.

Audi is going with a long-term plan regarding its Formula 1 entry and they are slowly adjusting every factor inside the Hinwil based team to make their entry, a more meaningful and effective one. At the beginning of the year 2023, Andreas Seidl was appointed as the CEO of Sauber as part of Audi's plan and he can be identified as the perfect fit for this job. They also hired the former McLaren technical director James Key to strengthen the development process of its challengers and he is coming to this midfield contender with tons of experience after working with several Formula 1 teams. The team's former head of trackside engineering, Xevi Pujolar was also promoted to a new role and he is now serving the team in the racing director capacity.

But Sauber didn't make any changes to their existing driver lineup despite they have made some key changes at the management level. So, Bottas and Zhou will continue their duties till the end of the 2024 season. But they need to do something special in the upcoming season if they need to retain their Sauber seats beyond that. Unless Sauber will try someone else for the 2025 season with Audi's plan in their minds.

Behind all these transformation processes, we should not forget the decline that they experienced in the previous season. Alfa Romeo finished the last season as ninth in the constructors' standings even though they finished the 2022 one as sixth.

Can they turn this transformation outside the track into something inside the track? That is the big question still remains.