The Williams and Sauber Formula 1 teams have both announced their 2024 season launches will take place on Feb. 5. The two teams follow Ferrari in confirming a launch date, with the Scuderia’s new car being unveiled on Feb. 13. The only details …
The Williams and Sauber Formula 1 teams have both announced their 2024 season launches will take place on Feb. 5.
The two teams follow Ferrari in confirming a launch date, with the Scuderia’s new car being unveiled on Feb. 13. The only details provided by the teams is that Sauber’s event will take place in London, and is likely to follow Williams with James Vowles’ team carrying out its launch earlier in the day.
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Williams is looking to follow an encouraging 2023 season that saw the team improve to finish seventh in the constructors’ championship, and recently confirmed Logan Sargeant will remain one of its two race drivers alongside Alex Albon.
For Sauber, it marks the first season following the end of its Alfa Romeo partnership, with the team officially being renamed as Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber and its 2024 car to be known as the C44.
“Our team is working around the clock to produce an incredible show that will unleash our new team identity in full and bring back the ‘wow’ factor to our sport,” the team stated in its announcement of the launch date.
Sauber has renamed its Formula 1 team “Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber” as part of new naming rights deals following the end of its Alfa Romeo partnership. The change has been confirmed in the 2024 entry list that has been released by the FIA, with Sauber …
Sauber has renamed its Formula 1 team “Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber” as part of new naming rights deals following the end of its Alfa Romeo partnership.
The change has been confirmed in the 2024 entry list that has been released by the FIA, with Sauber announcing that streaming company Kick, an existing major partner for the team, has secured naming rights to the chassis for the next two seasons.
From 2026 the team will be known as Audi, but until then two companies under the same Easygo umbrella — title partner Stake was already involved since last year — will be part of the team’s official name.
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“Sauber has always been about innovation, breaking the mould and defying convention,” team representative Alessandro Alunni Bravi said. “The partnership with Kick.com is the latest and boldest display of the philosophy that drives us.
“Kick.com is redefining the way live streaming is done and they will adopt the same disruptive approach in the world of Formula 1. With Kick.com, our goal is to make the next step in finding new and innovative ways to get closer to our fans.”
The entry list also reveals that AlphaTauri has retained the same team name at this stage, with the official entry called “Scuderia AlphaTauri RB.” The “RB” moniker allows flexibility with the final name for the team that is used, as a nod to Red Bull but a rumored change to “Racing Bulls” emerging over the final races of last season.
While Zhou Guanyu hopes to extend his stay at Sauber beyond this season, he says long-term stability is unlikely with multiple driver contracts expiring at the end of 2024. Currently racing as Alfa Romeo, the team will rebrand at the end of this …
While Zhou Guanyu hopes to extend his stay at Sauber beyond this season, he says long-term stability is unlikely with multiple driver contracts expiring at the end of 2024.
Currently racing as Alfa Romeo, the team will rebrand at the end of this season ahead of its transition into Audi’s F1 works team in 2026, and Zhou’s contract is set to expire after this year. The Chinese driver has delivered improved consistency and sits just one point behind teammate Valtteri Bottas in an uncompetitive 2023 car, and while he wants to sign a new deal he’s aware of how chaotic the driver market is likely to look in 12 months’ time.
“We are very open to all aspects for next year, and I myself will prefer staying here (Sauber),” Zhou told Titan Media. “Although it will not be Alfa next year, the team will become a factory team from 2026. So it is very important to me to be here to deliver better performance and fit better within the team. There may be many options during this period because I feel that there could be many shifts in the drivers market next year.”
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On top of deals that expire this year, nine drivers are believed to be out of contract after 2024, including Charles Leclerc, Sergio Perez, Carlos Sainz, Fernando Alonso, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly. Despite the uncertainty, Zhou says he is less anxious about his future than he was a year ago, when as a rookie he needed to trigger an option on his contract to remain with Alfa Romeo.
“Last year I might have been more concerned about the seat,” he said. “Although there is nothing confirmed so far this year and I’ve signed nothing related to the future, step by step, everything is proceeding as planned.
“What I need to know more is how to find what I think is the best for myself and the best for my future development. In this regard, I am not as worried as last year, and I will not let myself be concerned too much.
“Of course, I hope to continue what I am doing now — I want to do my best in all aspects and maximize what I have got in all areas (with racing), and leave other things to my management team.”
As part of the Formula 1 managerial merry-go-round that kicked into high gear over the past winter, there were major changes at Alfa Romeo Sauber. Popular team principal Fred Vasseur departed for Ferrari – hardly a slight on the team he was leaving …
As part of the Formula 1 managerial merry-go-round that kicked into high gear over the past winter, there were major changes at Alfa Romeo Sauber.
Popular team principal Fred Vasseur departed for Ferrari – hardly a slight on the team he was leaving – and in his place came Andreas Seidl. Sort of.
Seidl took on the position of chief executive officer of Sauber Motorsport, assuming one of the roles Vasseur had held, but leaving the position of team principal free. And that wasn’t directly filled, as Alessandro Alunni Bravi became team representative.
To suggest it’s simply a communications or optics-based role would be grossly unfair, but given the fact Alfa Romeo hasn’t set the world alight so far this season, there has been little call for Alunni Bravi to spend much time in the limelight.
In fact, he’s rarely enjoyed such a position, despite a career history that involves running teams at the level just below Formula 1 over the past 20 years.
“The sport is my life, not just a passion,” Alunni Bravi tells RACER. “I’ve been really lucky to be born in a small village in Umbria in the center of Italy – Passignano sul Trasimeno – that was the headquarters of Coloni that was in Formula 3, Formula 3000 and Formula 1. And close to a circuit between Perugia and Magione (Autodromo dell’Umbria).
“So when I was a child, and a teenager, I’ve been spending all my life around this. It’s always been motorsport at the center of my dreams, of my life. What I try (to do) is to combine my passion with my work as a lawyer, and I had the chance to start quite early at the end of the 1990s as a lawyer for a team, for drivers, working for driver management company.
“I could combine this with consultancy activity as a legal counsel to management activities for teams or for promoters. Plus, I have been working for the World Rally Championship as a general manager of the Italian round in Sardinia, and also with the sporting department of Fiat Auto Group.
“Then I had my own GP2 team with partners, working with Nicholas Todt. So, a lot of different activities until the day that I joined Sauber together with Fred Vasseur in 2017. Now of course, I’m focused on the F1 team and our Sauber Group. So it has been another evolution. This doesn’t mean that I’m fit for this role, it means that I’m old! But I can of course use my experience for my current job.”
Much like a lot of grand prix drivers, Alunni Bravi spent time in GP2 (now F2) on his way to F1, serving as team principal at Trident. Alistair Staley/Motorsport Images
Alunni Bravi is certainly doing himself a disservice, with the huge amount of motorsport experience being packed into a relatively short space of time and leaving him heading up Alfa Romeo at the age of 48. And although Seidl’s hiring comes with the air of him being the de facto team principal, his Italian counterpart says that’s not how Sauber is now organized.
“I know that people always say that now to be a team principal, or in my position, you need to have an engineering background,” he says. “I think that this is depending on the structure of each team. There are team principals that are previous engineers, because the team required this kind of profile in that particular structure.
“Other than that, there are those with more of a management profile like Toto Wolff or Christian Horner. So it’s really dependent on how you structure the group and the team activities.”
As a proud Italian, Alunni Bravi says he will not be sad when the Alfa Romeo collaboration ends after the current season ahead of the transition to become the Audi works team, because it has been a successful partnership from both sides. But it is very much a time of change at Hinwil, and one that the team representative has a key hand in.
“First of all, we work together hand in hand on a daily basis,” he says. “So someone can think that there is Andreas working on the future and me taking care of the present and this interim period of the team, but it is not like this. We work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to improve the team to deliver results now for our partners in the next years, but also to put the right foundation for what will be a bigger challenge to be a works team as of 2026.
“But we build our future here and now. So it’s a process that we do all together with our management, with our people. It’s not one single individual, but it’s a work that we perform together. And of course, we have the appointment of James Key. This I think is a statement for Sauber Motorsport for what we want for the future.
“We want to increase the quality in our group. We want to develop each single area. And I think that James will be instrumental in shaping – together with us and Andreas – the technical department, which is one of the core departments of an F1 team.”
That shaping is something that Alunni Bravi says is an exciting prospect because the imminent arrival of Audi is “a challenge that should be really attractive to everybody”. But that’s offset by a team that has slipped to ninth in the constructors’ championship behind Williams and Haas this season, having pipped Aston Martin to sixth last year.
It’s a tough spell that isn’t being ignored, but much like James Vowles’ mantra at Williams, the majority of decisions being taken at this point in time are with the future in mind, and without the pressure of a hard deadline for success.
Alunni Bravi says that Sauber’s effort is currently divided between delivering on the present-day program with Alfa Romeo, and preparing for the new chapter as the factory Audi team. Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images
“We prepare the future now,” Alunni Bravi says. “So we need to deliver strong results for us, for our partners, in the next two years, and this is why we are addressing all our weaknesses, and we are working hard to improve each area. James Key is one example of our vision for this, but we are appointing people in every department – it’s just we are not disclosing it.
“This is a process. How much time will it take? We have seen in the past with the likes of Red Bull or Mercedes, it is not easy to arrive and to win. You need time. You need time to find the right people, you need the time to develop your infrastructure.
“You will need time, because in Formula 1 there is a big inertia, and when you take a decision, sometimes you need to wait because the people are subject to gardening leave… (but) you need to create your organization and to make it work. So what is important is that we are taken the right decisions for the future.
“I don’t think is correct to speak about the date or time. We are in 2023. We finished P6 last year in the constructors’ championship, which has been the best result for Sauber in the last 10 years. But the road is long. Of course, we need to work on a daily basis to be ready to be more competitive in 2026. But this will be the start of the project.
“Don’t forget that this will be the first year with Audi in Formula 1, as a works team, as a full manufacturer. So we cannot set the target, but this will be the first year we need to have the structure ready to face the challenges. And then we will see.
“If we have done a good job then we’ll be competitive, if not we’ll just know that we need to improve and we have hard work ahead of us. So it is not really correct now to set that target of when we need to score podiums or fight for wins.”
But will it be Alunni Bravi who gets much of the credit if the Audi transition is a success for Sauber? Or criticism if not? He doesn’t mind either way, but he wants to make clear that his role means he does shoulder the responsibility.
“The reward is not to be more popular or to have my face recognized around the paddock, I think that the reward is the respect of your people,” he says. “I don’t feel a big difference between working behind the scenes or now, I just hope that I represent the team in the correct way.
“Maybe for my friends, now they have the opportunity to see me more on TV, and not only three four times a year when I get the chance to go back home to stay with my friends! But for me the reward is to do a proper job on a daily basis for the team.
“And then I hope that also people understand through myself how much commitment and effort we are putting into this project. How much as a team we are working hard to develop ourselves. You can do the right choice, we can do bad choices, but I’m a person that never was afraid to take a decision. For me, it’s important that we take decisions.
“In Formula 1, you need to take responsibility for what you do. This is the most important part of my job.”
