There are still two races to go before the summer break, in Hungary and Belgium, and the Sauber team finds itself in a very difficult position after the first half of the season. And not only because it has not scored a single point after twelve stages of the season and is in last place in the constructors’ championship.
According to the Swiss tabloid Blick, which is usually well informed about what is happening in Hinwil, a power struggle is raging behind the scenes of the championship events in the management of Sauber/Audi. The conflicts between Andreas Seidl, CEO of the Sauber Group, and Oliver Hoffmann, director of Audi Sport, are said to have increased.
This is partly due to the fact that Gernot Döllner, the new CEO of the German company, tasked Hoffmann with overseeing the factory programme in Formula 1, and now disagreements have arisen between the two managers responsible for creating the Audi factory team, as they cannot share authority.
In this situation, rumors appeared that there was already talk about an alternative candidate for the future team leader – we are talking about Mike Krak, who theoretically could go to work at Hinvil. Again, rumors are that he is increasingly uncomfortable at Aston Martin (probably due to the practices of the British team owner Laurence Stroll and the imminent arrival of Andy Cowell).
Here is a short quote from the text in the Sunday issue of Blick: “We can only hope that Beat Zehnder, who holds the position of sporting director of Sauber, born in Zurich and one of the best minds in Formula 1, will not be a victim of the German confrontation. In all this chaos in connection with the arrival of Audi, lawyer Alessandro Alunni Bravi continues to act as representative of the team … “
And the question remains who will be Nico Hulkenberg’s teammate at Sauber/Audi next year. Valtteri Bottas looks set to move to Williams, while James Vowles has been open about his interest in the Finn.
One can only guess what the future fate of Guanyu Zhou will be. According to the author of the text in Blick, someone who is absolutely not welcome at Sauber is Kevin Magnussen, whose career in Formula 1 may be coming to an end. Haas F1 has already signed a contract with Oliver Berman, a 19-year-old Ferrari protégé, and everything seems to be heading towards the experienced Esteban Ocon becoming his partner in the American team next year.
In general, Formula 1 is now in the middle of a silly season – the “stupid season” in the world of motorsport is the time when the active phase of negotiations begins on all sorts of transfers and rumors that are inevitably connected with this process. Moreover, this period has not yet reached its peak.
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
