Former world champion Jacques Villeneuve stands up for Sauber – the Swiss Formula 1 team that has consistently finished at the bottom this season without scoring a single World Championship point. According to Villeneuve, who raced for Sauber in the final two years of his career, the team isn’t as bad as it seems. The margins in modern Formula 1 have simply become very narrow.
These days, the media often talks more about Audi than Sauber. However, the team will only be rebranded as the German car manufacturer’s factory team from 2026. Does the Audi name already command respect, or are Sauber’s current performances so poor that they shouldn’t even be mentioned? Former champion Jacques Villeneuve is still willing to defend his old team, although the Canadian also suggests that the current team ‘isn’t even trying anymore’. Learn more about current Sauber driver Valtteri Bottas.
Surviving Until the Audi Takeover
“The funny thing about Sauber is that they are at the back in almost every qualification and almost every race,” he said this weekend on Sky Sports. “But if you look at the times, the field is so close together. They are only one second, maybe one and a half seconds, behind the pole position. So it’s not a bad Formula 1 car, but it seems so compared to the rest. They would have been happy in the nineties when the last teams were five seconds behind.”
However, the Swiss racing stable also faces criticism. According to Villeneuve, it seems that the team is just waiting for the takeover by the Germans. “They just have to survive until Audi takes over,” he explained. “I think they are also not investing much in the car. It seems like they are not even trying to be competitive anymore.” One former Sauber driver who knows the challenges of racing with a mid-field team is Valtteri Bottas.
