Sauber Formula One Team is a Formula One team based in Switzerland and is running under a license issued by Switzerland. The team’s foundation could be traced back to the early part of the 1970s when the team was founded by Peter Sauber. The team was not founded to compete in Formula One at first and used to compete in World Sports Car Championship till 1993 after which the team moved to become a part of the Formula One bandwagon. The team did not win even a single Formula One race in its 13 years in Formula One prior to 2005 after which, it was sold to BMW and operated under the moniker of BMW Sauber. During that period, the team was able to pull off one significant victory when it won thanks to efforts of the team engineers and under Nick Heidfeld.
The Sauber Formula One Team, after joining the Formula One scene in 1993 was more or less considered by young, up and coming drivers as a stepping stone to driving for the bigger manufactures such as Ferrari and McLaren and this was mainly because of the fact that peter Sauber had the reputation of being able to turn youngsters into superstars under his guidance. The team made its Formula One debut at the South African Grand Prix of 1993 and what turned the heads of the audience and everyone else that was present at the moment was the dark black streamlined design of the car as well as its performance as it swerved and sped to fifth position in the team’s very first race. The team’s engine was being built by Mercedes, though unofficially but from the 1994 season onwards, the team came to be known as Sauber Mercedes after an official partnership was announced. However, that partnership was very much short lived and the team changed their engine manufacturer to Ford for the 1995 and 1996 seasons but the performances were not up to the high standards that Sauber Formula One Team set for itself.
In 1997, the team changed engine manufacturers again and tied up with Ferrari but the results that the team was looking for never came. This partnership was to last till 2005 after the team was sold to BMW. However, when BMW pulled out of the sport, the team went back to the Ferrari engines and has been competing again as Sauber Formula One Team since the 2010 season.
Team Sauber have had an uncomfortable start to the Malaysian Grand Prix practice, with both drivers finding theirs car difficult to control and at times “undriveable”, as well as suffering from gear box issues which cut short Kamui Kobayashi’s time on the track. The Japanese driver was ranked 14th fastest after the two Friday practice sessions, and his team mate Sergio Perez only managed to record the 20th fastest time.
Kobayashi was flying in Melbourne, and finished in 6th, while Perez was also in the points in 8th position. But to continue with their fine start to the 2012 season, the team need to get their problems sorted in the final practice session on Saturday, and since Kobayashi couldn’t use all the allotted time on Friday, he really needs to learn the quirks of the Sepang circuit as quickly as possible on Saturday. “It was a shame that I lost so much track time in the second session because of the gear box problem, but these things happen,” he said.
Sauber’s head of track engineering Giampaolo Dall’Ara admitted that there were several issues that still need addressing to make sure that the cars are competitive during the race itself on Sunday. “We have some work ahead of us to get the car’s balance right here,” said Dall’Ara.
Kamui explained that the heat and tropical conditions of Malaysia were proving tough to adapt to. “It was the first time we have used the 2012 tyres in such high temperatures and the degradation is quite significant,” said Kobayashi. “Probably this had an impact as well, but in any case we struggled with the balance of the car quite a lot today.”
Jarno Trulli also found the balance of the Sauber car difficult to fathom, and will hope that he can continue last season’s good form in qualifying by finding the right setup on Saturday. “It was a difficult day in terms of setting up the car and getting the balance right,” said Perez. “It was better on long runs than on single laps, we managed to achieve some improvements for the second free practice and now we will be looking carefully at the data tonight.”
Sergio Perez thinks that his Sauber F1 team has taken a huge step forward with their car at Barcelona, after a disturbed start to their pre-season testing program. The brand new C31 was beset with dependability problems in the first 2 tests, but Sauber appears on top of their troubles.
The Mexican thinks that things are coming together for sure. Their car was getting was getting better that it was few days back, therefore they are going to the right way. He is very happy with the new car as well as the performance. He really feels comfortable with the car.
In many areas, they have more info that could not get before, particularly him. He could not get info from the new car as every time he tried, there were some problems, but now he believes that they have a nice hold on the car. Their team has tried many things in both long and short runs and everything is going quite ok.
The new Sauber, Perez believes, is an improvement on their predecessor when it comes to switch on tyres for a lap’s performance, though it seems to have come at the disbursal of its ability to watch out it rubber over longer distances.
Sauber is turning on the tyre better than they used to do last year. They are positive on that, and he believes that it is huge step ahead. This time the tyres have huge degradation than last year. Last year, in testing, they had similar kind of problem and when the season began, everything changed.
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November 7, 2011 5:54 pm | 
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