Sauber has denied that its current lack of performance is related to the fact that its new owner, Audi, focus most of its efforts on the Formula 1 regulations for the 2026 season.
The Swiss team is the only one He has yet to score points after nine Grands Prix, hampered by reliability problems and pit stops earlier in the year.. And, just when it was beginning to control its stops, the team has not kept up with the pace of the middle zone in terms of development, being the slowest car on the grid in the last few races.
The fall of the Hinwil-based team occurs in a context in which the new majority owner, Audi, is injecting resources to prepare its entry as a manufacturer in 2026, including a custom power unit built in Germany.
Audi’s focus on getting a strong start to 2026 before taking over the team, which takes priority over delivering short-term results, has not gone unnoticed by Valtteri Bottas. The Finn is a candidate to keep his seat, but only if Audi does not sign its main target, Carlos Sainz, as Nico Hulkenberg’s teammate.
But if Bottas and his teammate Guanyu Zhou leave, They are currently stuck in no man’s land as Sauber CEO Andreas Seidl prepares the structure for long-term success.
“Obviously, quite a few things have been done in the team to improve [para] the future,” Bottas said.Sometimes you can take one step back to take two steps forward, so that’s part of the game, but I hope we are in better shape. That’s all I can say”.
“Fundamentally, there’s nothing big wrong, we just have to keep adding performance because many of our rivals have taken a leap forward. We have done it, but not enough. But as I said, I think the big goals are more for the future.”
But Alunni Bravi, a member of the board of directors and visible face of Sauber at the moment, affirms that the team’s short-term performance and long-term ambitions are not incompatible. “I think it’s a mistake to mix the two,” he says. “I don’t think the preparation [de] Audi is affecting the two current seasons, and it should not do so“.
“I think we have weak points that we are trying to solve. Andreas Seidl has been working since last January to improve the team in this transformation process. But The process starts from improving the current structure, and finding the right people to reinforce our technical teams. In all areas”.
“I don’t think we should do two separate tasks, one for the team. [del futuro] and another for the current team. There are no two separate teams. There is one that has to be the basis of the work team,” explained the Italian.
Alunni Bravi also added that the team’s plight is partly the reason why Audi has accelerated its full takeover of Sauber, becoming a 100 per cent shareholder last March.
“We are not where we should be, also in terms of hiring and investment. And that is why Audi decided in March to fully acquire the Sauber Group, in order to boost the investments that are necessary to take the step towards [delante]. We know exactly where the light at the end of the tunnel is, but we are still in the tunnel“, he concluded.
