F1: Alfa Romeo to Buy Sauber?

The Sauber team has been part of the F1 grid for a long time now. Peter Sauber started a team to fulfil a dream and it has worked as the launchpad for several illustrious such as Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen. Both of them went on to race for Ferrari, where Kimi won the world title, while Massa narrowly missed out.

And now it seems that the team’s association could come to an end. Before the start of the season, Sauber entered into a sponsorship deal with Alfa Romeo. Sauber are already engine partners with Ferrari and Alfa Romeo is a Fiat Chrysler brand like their engine partners.

They replaced their technical boss, Jorg Zander with Ferrari’s design chief, Simone Resta which signalled a possible change in ownership. But it seems that that may have already taken place. For the last couple of years, Sauber has been owned by investment company, Longbow Finance.

But the Hinwil-based team’s ownership has now changed hands to another company called Islero Investments. Longbow boss, Pascal Picci was quoted as saying, “Islero Investments has taken over the position of Longbow Finance. Sauber will remain independent for the foreseeable future.”

However, this has sparked rumours that this could a set-up for Alfa Romeo to take up reins of the Sauber team completely. According to a reporter, a number of members of Sauber’s staff are set for a visit to the headquarters of the Ferrari team, located in Maranello, Italy.

Sauber currently occupy the second-last spot in the constructors’ championship for the 2018 F1 season, ahead of Williams. They have scored 11 points, courtesy of Charles Leclerc who finished in point-scoring places at Spain and Azerbaijan while his teammate, Marcus Ericsson has scored points in the Bahrain Grand Prix after a stellar drive.

If by chance, Sauber do disappear from the grid, it would signal the end of a very important team in F1, a team which acted as the stepping stone to many a top driver, the most recent being Leclerc.