Team Sauber and its 14 names

The Swiss team Sauber will compete in its 32nd season in Formula 1 as the Stake F1 Team, and this is already the 14th name, which the fans, but also journalists and even everyone in the championship paddock will have to get used to.

In short, changes in the official name of the team were related to the arrival of the next title sponsor, but there were other situations and the newspaper Blick decided to recall the “history of the problem.”

The only detail that has remained unchanged all these years and remains unchanged is the Latin letter C in the chassis model index. Peter Sauber, the team’s founder, always named cars after his wife Christiane, and for the first time Sauber drivers, the Austrian Karl Wendlinger and Finn JJ Lehto, were at the start of the World Championship in Sauber C12 in the spring of 1993. cars with Mercedes engines.

Here is a list of the official names of the team from Hinwil, Switzerland, under which it has competed in Formula 1 over the years:

1993: Sauber

1994: (up to and including the Monaco stage): Broker Sauber Mercedes

1994: (from Canada round): Sauber Mercedes

1995–1996: Red Bull Sauber Ford

1997–2001: Red Bull Sauber Petronas

2002: Sauber Petronas

2003–2004: Red Bull Sauber Petronas

2005: Sauber Petronas

2006–2010: BMW Sauber F1 team

2011-2017: Sauber F1 team

2018: Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 team

2019: Alfa Romeo Racing

2020-2021: Alfa Romeo Racing Orlen

2022: Alfa Romeo F1 team Orlen

2023: Alfa Romeo F1 team bet

2024: Deploy F1 team

It is unlikely that the current version of the name under which the team will compete in the new season will be appreciated by anyone other than Sauber’s sponsors – the Stake company, registered on the island of Curacao, but essentially Australian. By the way, this is not the last option: in some races the name will be forced to change to Kick, and we talked about that.

But the authors of the text in the Blick tabloid remembered that Stake F1 is not the strangest sign under which the team took part in the championship. In this respect, there is little that can be compared to the outwardly absolutely neutral name BMW Sauber F1 Team, but the fact is that the Bavarian concern shortened its Formula 1 program in 2009 and had nothing to do with the team the following season.

However, all official documents had already been sent to the FIA ​​​​and when Peter Sauber managed to save his brainchild, in 2010 the old name was retained, although the cars built in Hinwil again had Ferrari engines.

The fact that sponsorship companies continue to play a role in the history of world motorsport is a completely normal and common phenomenon. Whoever pays determines the melody. However, the Sauber name first disappeared from the team’s name in 2019, when it was renamed Alfa Romeo Racing.

It is also worth recalling that initially it was thanks to Peter Sauber that brands such as Red Bull and Petronas came to Formula 1.