Audi F1's 'blindingly obvious' fix for long-term Sauber stumbling block

Neither is regarded as having ultimately been a success, in large part because Barnard was such a strong personality and a “them and us” culture developed. In addition communications have moved on apace since those days, and managing bases in different countries no longer as difficult as it was.

Sauber’s staffing problem stretches back to its early days. The Hinwil area is pleasant enough, but Switzerland is not for everyone, even for single people who don’t face the issue of arranging schools for kids and jobs for spouses. Also in the past it wasn’t always easy to fit in with the culture of the team itself, and the way that founder and former boss Peter Sauber liked to run things.

Some well-known names have passed through the doors over the years. Harvey Postlethwaite spent 1991 helping to set up what he thought was going to be the Mercedes works F1 team, but he left when that support didn’t materialise.

His right-hand man Mike Gascoyne stayed behind to design the first car in 1993, but he didn’t always find it easy.

“The first thing I said was, ‘We are going to be making 50-60 undertrays a year, because we’ll wear them out.’” he recalls. “And Mr Sauber said, ‘On the sports car we used to glue the undertray to the chassis and never change it all year.’

“He couldn’t get his mind around it. We designed the car, we did winter testing with it, and it was pretty quick. I then came up with a load of modifications for the first race, and Mr Sauber couldn’t get his mind around that either, and just said, ‘It’s going to cost money, and you’re just changing it for the sake of it, you’re just trying to make it look as though you’re the clever one.’

“I kept telling him, ‘It’s pretty quick now, but halfway through the season, you’ll be nowhere.’ And if you look at the results, halfway through the season they just got swamped, because they didn’t understand the rate of development.”

In late ’93 Gascoyne didn’t hesitate when Postlethwaite invited him to join Tyrrell. McLaren and Ferrari veteran Steve Nichols was also at Sauber at the time, and had a similar experience.

“We’d done this deal where I’d gone there to replace Harvey Postlethwaite, but it wasn’t working out very well,” says the American.

“I don’t know why Peter Sauber hired me, because I went there and I’m saying, ‘Well, here’s what we got to do to change the way you work, and improve things.’ And he took the attitude that I had to adapt to them!”

Over the years many more British-based F1 personnel would make the trip to Switzerland, but even those who enjoyed working at the team and who adapted to the local culture rarely stayed long.

Sauber was usually a line on a CV, a springboard back to greater opportunities in the UK. It’s worth noting that down the decades a high proportion of Sauber’s top technical folk have been drawn from neighbouring EU countries.

Audi’s recent recruitment drive really brought home to Mattia Binotto and the rest of the current management that moving to Switzerland was an ongoing issue for potential candidates, which is why the idea for a British base began to formulate.

A new UK company was registered on December 23, with its directors listed as Markus Massouh (a longtime Audi man recently named as Sauber’s chief financial officer) and Michael Moritz (a Sauber director and Audi’s top legal guy), and the search for a suitable site began.

Sauber candidly says that it is “evaluating potential locations within ‘Motorsport Valley,’ including Bicester, Silverstone, and Milton Keynes.” The fact that the new base will be operational in the summer confirms that it will simply be an existing office building with workstations and a connection to Sauber’s IT system. An initial headcount of 40-50 is envisaged.

There’s no intention to undertake any manufacturing, which was the case with the Barnard organisations. And in contrast to the Racing Bulls UK base the aerodynamic R&D focus inevitably remains in Hinwil, where the team has a very good tunnel.

However, there’s still scope for aero people to work remotely in the UK. A LinkedIn post from a team member suggests that there are opportunities “from aerodynamic development to CFD methodology, structural analysis, technical software, and performance modelling”, adding that “senior and principal roles” are open.

It’s worth noting that incoming team principal Jonathan Wheatley knows a lot of people in the sport, and not just at his former team Red Bull. It will now be a lot easier for him to persuade them to come on board.

The Sauber news comes at an interesting time, with the arrival of Cadillac at Silverstone and expansion of the Racing Bulls Milton Keynes operation creating more opportunities and thus even more competition for talent.

That in theory should drive up salaries – however at the same time there have been rumblings on social media about the need to stay within the cost cap obliging some F1 teams to keep salaries in check, and potentially below what engineers can earn in other categories.

There’s also an unspoken cost cap element to Audi’s move. It takes a big salary to attract people to Switzerland, and employment costs are high anyway, a fact acknowledged when rivals were left frustrated last year after the team was given some leeway within the FIA’s financial regulations.

Logic suggests that Sauber will now get more bang for its Swiss Francs by employing people in the UK. It will also be much easier for those hired on short term contracts, perhaps for special projects, to come and go. Even folk who are willing to work in Hinwil could be based temporarily at the UK office while the logistics of their move are worked out.

Will the new hub really make a difference? Only time will tell, and ultimately the team’s form in 2026 and beyond depends entirely on the performance of the power unit currently under development in Neuberg.

However in a world where marginal gains count Audi has at least cleared one of the biggest hurdles it faced.