Sauber Motorsport

Did You Know?

• In November 2018, Sauber entered a partnership with Czech team Charouz Racing System to form the Sauber Junior Team.
• A karting team was created in March 2019 as part of the Sauber Junior Team.
• In 2020, Sauber relaunched the junior team as Sauber Academy and parted ways with Charouz.

Sports car racing

Peter Sauber built the C1 in his parents' garage to compete in the 1970 Swiss Sports Car Championship, using an open-cockpit tubular chassis powered by a 1.0L Cosworth engine. The C2 increased engine power to 1.6L and took Sauber's first three race wins in domestic hillclimbing. The 2.0L Cosworth-powered C4 won one race in the 1975 European 2-Litre Sportscar Championship. The C5, designed for Le Mans in 1977, led the Group 6 class before retiring in both 1977 and 1978, but delivered Sauber's first championship by winning the 1976 Interserie Championship with Swiss driver Herbert Müller.

After a one-year hiatus as a Lola F2 chassis builder, Sauber entered two cars in the 1980 BMW M1 Procar Championship, achieving three consecutive pole positions with Marc Surer and Manfred Schurti. The team then stepped up to Group C prototype racing with the Sauber SHS C6, designed with Seger & Hoffmann, which finished fifth in the 1982 World Sportscar Championship for Manufacturers. The C7, an iteration of the SHS C6, finished ninth overall at the 1983 24 Hours of Le Mans and disrupted Porsche's top-ten dominance.

Formula One

Sauber intended to enter Formula One in direct collaboration with Mercedes, but the joint project was shelved; Mercedes instead funded Sauber's first engine contract. The team re-branded Ilmor V10 engines as Sauber power units, and the Sauber C12 spent most of 1992 testing. For 1993, the team signed JJ Lehto and Karl Wendlinger. Mercedes joined as an official component in 1994, but the Sauber-Mercedes team regressed to eighth in the championship.

Wendlinger was seriously injured after a practice crash at the Monaco Grand Prix, leading Sauber to re-engineer its cars with high cockpit side walls, which later became mandatory. Mercedes left at the end of 1994, and Sauber inherited Benetton's works engine deal with Ford for 1995. In conjunction with the Ford deal, Sauber signed a ten-year sponsorship deal with Red Bull; Dietrich Mateschitz purchased a majority share, and Fritz Kaiser joined as commercial director.

Heinz-Harald Frentzen led the team to its largest F1 tally with eighteen points and scored the team's first podium at the 1995 Italian Grand Prix with a third place finish. 1995 also marked the start of the team's long association with Petronas, who joined mid-season and later became a presenting sponsor until 2009.