Times are changing at the Sauber Formula 1 team. The operation, for so long a minnow, will morph into a much bigger operation when Audi takes over in 2026, a move more than three years in the making.
“I’m sitting here excited. The idea that in a very short period of time we’re going to be opening the garage door with our own chassis and our own power unit, it just seems incredible,” Jonathan Wheatley, team principal, said in an interview this month. The team currently uses Ferrari power units.
Wheatley joined Sauber in April, following almost 20 years with Red Bull as team manager and sporting director, playing a role in six constructors’ titles. He also won titles as a mechanic with Benetton and Renault in the mid-1990s and mid-2000s.
“I found a team that was younger than I expected, a team with a lot of enthusiastic people, a lot of bright ideas,” Wheatley said. “It was immediately obvious there was some structure that needed to be put around that and some clear communication.”
Wheatley is part of a management structure that includes Mattia Binotto, the former Ferrari team principal, who last August was appointed chief operating officer and chief technical officer of Sauber Motorsport. Binotto, Wheatley said, “had been doing a lot of hard work before I arrived, and there was a whole load of good stuff happening.”
Audi confirmed in mid-2022 that it would enter Formula 1 for the first time in 2026, as Sauber’s strategic partner. It took majority ownership in 2024.
Sauber finished last in 2024 but since a major car update in June, it has moved to eighth place, with 45 points across the last seven Grands Prix.
“Obviously we started in a very difficult way: We had a car that was probably the worst car on the grid, we were struggling, in the race pace we were very bad,” Gabriel Bortoleto, one of the team’s drivers, said at a news conference this month. “Then we improved a lot, we brought some upgrades, now we’re in a position to be able to score points. The team has done an amazing job on that, as it’s not easy to turn things around like we have done.”
Sauber also has become operationally slicker during race events.
“I’m feeling quite proud, honestly, of where the team is now compared with what I saw when I came through in April,” Wheatley said. “I don’t want you to associate the two. The team was on a journey, and I’ve joined the journey at a certain point. I’m incredibly encouraged by the passion in the team, by the desire to change, the desire to improve, the desire to listen and be open to new ideas. It’s one thing putting performance on the car, it’s another thing getting the parts to the car, it’s another thing watching the tools work, understanding that we’re on this journey and we’re gathering momentum along the way.”
He said the recent results have galvanized the team and showed that it can turn things around.
“You can say so many times we’re capable of great things,” Wheatley said. “The analogy I can think of is, I don’t currently speak German, so you could tell me, ‘You will speak German,’ and I’ll be going, ‘Well, I can’t see how on earth I’m going to speak German.’ And then after months and months, you pick up words, you pick up sentences, you start to believe” that you’re making progress.
“You can tell a team that we’re capable of great things. You can tell a team there’s nothing stopping us doing what we intend to do. But people need to get on that journey. There need to be these steps along the way that make them believe in it, make me believe in it, make all of us believe in it. And that’s where we are at the moment. We have this momentum growing in the team.”
The pinnacle of Sauber’s resurgence was its surprise podium at the British Grand Prix in July. The veteran driver Nico Hülkenberg rose from 19th to third, taking his first podium in his 239th start and Sauber’s first trophy in 13 years.
“The thing I took away from the race weekend was we did everything right that day,” Wheatley said. “It shows us that out of 10 decisions, we can sometimes get all 10 right. To come away from any race and say that is hard. We maximized a situation that presented it to ourselves, Nico drove a flawless race, the team made all the right decisions strategically, there was no panic. I turned around from the pit wall, feeling completely calm and thought ‘well, that was good, that was a podium.’ And then I saw this explosion of emotion behind me! Oh, wow, yeah this is a really big deal isn’t it?”
That calmness and success are what he is striving to install within Sauber.
“It’s where I’m used to being,” Wheatley said. “Maybe that’s a little indicator of what I’m going to be able to bring to the team moving forwards, is just being relaxed in those situations, because I know what it takes to win races and multiple championships, and so does Mattia by the way.”
Some of that growing belief involves a cultural change, as head count expands to more than 700, with investment in upgrading infrastructure. Sauber has won one Grand Prix, in 2008, during a four-year ownership by BMW. For most of the team’s existence, its aspirations have been modest, and, as recently as the mid-2010s, it came perilously close to collapsing amid financial constraints. Now, as it changes to a manufacturer team under Audi’s ownership, there is the target of winning races and championships by 2030.
“There’s an ambitious plan for expansion,” Wheatley said. “There’s an ambitious plan for culture change within the organization. People often think, is there something negative about the culture? It’s not that at all. it’s coming from a small team that’s been firefighting for a very long time, it’s done an incredible job. And now we’re going into: How do we maximize this investment? How do we turn this relatively small team that’s been in firefighting mode for a really long time into a proper works Formula 1 team?”
That involves ensuring the different divisions are unified, with the chassis to be constructed at Sauber’s factory in Hinwil, Switzerland, and Audi manufacturing and developing the power unit at Neuburg an der Donau, Germany.
“We need to be more aligned as a chassis and powertrain combination than anyone ever has been before,” Wheatley said, adding that the power unit is meeting performance targets.
Hülkenberg said the new regulations were an opportunity.
“The important thing is that we put all the right things in place, that we continue growing, improve the infrastructure, improve the team, the foundation of the team, to become this bigger factory team,” he said.
Wheatley’s past teams — Benetton and Red Bull — broke new and unexpected ground by dethroning the established competitors to claim world titles.
“We have respect for the teams that we’re trying to fight,” Wheatley said. “To break through that lockout at the top of the grid there with McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes, we’re going to need to carry some serious momentum. I’ve done it before. Teams that I have been with before have been disrupters, and that’s what we are. We’re a disrupter, and we’re going to do it the Audi way, which is going to be different to how other people have done it.”
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