Independent return with Ferrari engines (2010–2017)
On 27 November 2009, it was announced that Peter Sauber would repurchase the team conditional upon the team receiving a FIA entry for the 2010 season.[32]
On 3 December 2009, the FIA confirmed that Sauber had been granted the entry vacated by Toyota Racing following their withdrawal[33] and would be using Ferrari engines.[34] Peter Sauber had previously announced, on 29 November, that the team's chassis for the 2010 season would be designated Sauber C29, while the Swiss newspaper Blick reported that the team will be called Team Sauber F1.[35] However, in January 2010, Peter Sauber had said that he had not yet applied for a change of name, so therefore they remained for the season as BMW Sauber F1 Team despite zero BMW components.[36] Kamui Kobayashi was announced as their first signed driver for the 2010 season on 17 December 2009. Pedro de la Rosa was signed as Sauber's second driver on 19 January 2010.[37]
Before the, it was announced that Nick Heidfeld would replace de la Rosa for the remaining five races of the season. Esteban Gutiérrez later joined the team as a reserve driver, and drove during young drivers' testing after the end of the season.
Despite promising pace in winter testing, the team struggled with technical problems in the early rounds of the season, with no points from the first six races. After running a blank livery for the first four races of the 2010 season, the team finally announced a sponsorship deal with the Burger King fast food franchise at the Spanish and European Grands Prix.[38] During frustrations, Peter Sauber admitted that his decision to rescue the team had been emotionally driven, but insisted that it was proper.[39] Finally, in Turkey, Kobayashi finished tenth, collecting the team's first championship point for the season.
At the in Valencia, after qualifying in 18th place, Kobayashi spent a vast proportion of the race in third position defending from Jenson Button who was following closely behind in fourth. After entering the pits during the closing stages of the race to switch tyres, Kobayashi exited the pit in ninth. In the last few laps of the race, Kobayashi overtook the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso and the Toro Rosso of Sébastien Buemi for a seventh-place finish. The impressive drive from Kobayashi received much acclaim and was Sauber's best result of the season to-date. Pedro de la Rosa meanwhile, despite originally crossing the line in tenth position to secure 1 point, was relegated to 12th place after a penalty, stripping away a double points finish. Both drivers went on to score points at the and.
The second half of the season gave more productive and consistent results; The drives of Kobayashi, Heidfeld and de la Rosa combined earned 44 points, giving the team eighth place in the Constructors' Championship. Kobayashi performed the team's season-best finish of sixth at the.
Kobayashi was retained for ; he was joined by teammate Sergio Pérez and his compatriot Esteban Gutiérrez as reserve driver. The team debuted their 2011 car – the C30 – on 31 January,[40] with testing beginning the following day.
At the start of the season in Australia, both Pérez and Kobayashi were later disqualified due to technical infringements. Pérez suffered a major collision at the, resulting in concussion and a sprained thigh.[41] Despite being passed fit for the , Pérez withdrew from the weekend after the first free practice session due to illness, he was replaced by 2010 Sauber driver Pedro de la Rosa for the remainder of the weekend.[42]
For the remainder of the season, the team obtained regular top-10 finishes, and overall finished seventh in the Constructors' Championship.
On 28 July, it was announced that Kobayashi, Pérez and Gutiérrez would all remain in the Sauber setup for the 2012 season.[43]
Sauber started the season with a double points-scoring finish – Kobayashi sixth and Pérez eighth – in Australia, before Pérez finished second the following week, at the ; the team's best result as an independent team.[44] Kobayashi then started third at the behind the two Mercedes cars of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher; although Kobayashi finished the race in tenth position, he recorded the fastest lap of the race, his first in Formula One.
Prior to the, Sauber announced a sponsorship deal with English Premier League team Chelsea.[45] After the race, in which Kobayashi equalled his career-best result of fifth, Peter Sauber announced that he had transferred ownership of a third of the team to CEO Monisha Kaltenborn.[46] Pérez achieved his second podium of the season at the with third place, while Kobayashi added a ninth place to help Sauber move up to sixth place in the Constructors' Championship.[47]
For the, Sauber achieved their best result of the season. After starting in twelfth position, Kobayashi finished fifth, equalling his best result at the time, before a time penalty for Sebastian Vettel pushed him up into fourth, giving him the best result of his career. Meanwhile, after starting down in 17th due to a penalty, Pérez managed to work a great tyre strategy and finished just behind Kobayashi – prior to Vettel's penalty – in sixth position, giving the team a total points haul of 20, their best since splitting with BMW, and giving them a 53-point advantage over Williams for sixth in the Constructors' Championship.[48] At the, Kobayashi started second and Pérez fourth, the best grid positions in Sauber's history. At the start of the race, Romain Grosjean caused a spectacular crash taking himself, Pérez, championship leader Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton out of the race. Kobayashi's Sauber was also damaged and he finished the race in 13th place.
At the, Sauber scored 20 points; Pérez used a one-stop strategy to move from twelfth on the grid to take his third podium of the season with second place, while Kobayashi finished in ninth place.[49] Kobayashi took his first podium finish and the team's fourth of the season at the ; the following week, it was announced that Peter Sauber was stepping back from the daily management of his team, handing the role of team principal to Kaltenborn.[50] On 23 November 2012, it was announced that Nico Hülkenberg, Esteban Gutiérrez and Robin Frijns would make up the team's line-up for the season; Hülkenberg and Gutiérrez as part of the race team and Frijns as reserve driver.[51] The team's car for the season, the C32, was launched in Hinwil on 2 February 2013.[52] The livery was changed and the car is now grey, similar to the Sauber cars in the early 1990s.[53] Despite a promising eighth place for Hülkenberg at the second round of the season, the, it was clear soon that the C32 was far from the competitiveness shown by its predecessor, with Hülkenberg unable to obtain better than a tenth-place finish in subsequent races and rookie Gutiérrez having been unable to score as of the.
On 15 July 2013, Sergey Sirotkin joined Sauber as a development driver as part of a tie-in with Russian investors with a view to promoting him to a race seat as early as .[55]
At the Singapore Grand Prix both Hülkenberg and Gutiérrez were in the points, running sixth and seventh respectively due to pitting under the safety car, but as their tyres went away Hülkenberg managed ninth place and Gutiérrez only 12th. Hülkenberg showed some impressive driving in Korea, finishing in fourth place and allowing Sauber to pass Toro Rosso in the standings. The Japanese Grand Prix saw the team's first double points finish of the 2013 season with Hülkenberg sixth after running most of the race in fourth, and Gutiérrez seventh after an impressive battle with Nico Rosberg's Mercedes. Hülkenberg scored again in the last two rounds and Sauber finished seventh in the WCC with 57 points.
In February 2014, IndyCar Series driver Simona de Silvestro was signed by Sauber as an "affiliated driver", with the intent of racing in F1 by .[56] However, by the end of 2014, de Silvestro was no longer part of the team.[57] For the season, Gutiérrez was retained and joined by Adrian Sutil, following Hülkenberg's decision to return to Force India. The team struggled throughout the season, often going out in the first round of qualifying and failing to score a single point for the first time in team history.
On 1 November 2014, it was announced that Marcus Ericsson would drive for Sauber in .[58] On 5 November 2014, Felipe Nasr was announced as a Sauber driver to complete the 2015 line-up.[59] Ferrari Driver Academy member Raffaele Marciello acted as reserve driver. The team also underwent a livery change in accordance to their new sponsor Banco do Brasil.[60][61]
The start of the season saw Sauber become involved in legal action commenced by their 2014 reserve driver, Giedo van der Garde. On 5 March 2015, van der Garde received a partial award under international arbitration by the Swiss Chambers' Arbitration Institution, upholding the driver's contract for a race seat in .[62] Sauber breached the contract when the team instead signed Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson as announced in November 2014. Despite the Swiss arbitrator ordering Sauber to "refrain from taking any action the effect of which would be to deprive Mr. van der Garde of his entitlement to participate in the 2015 Formula One season as one of Sauber's two nominated race drivers", further legal action was required to see the award enforced.[63] Just prior to the held on 13 to 15 March 2015, van der Garde applied to an Australian court who ordered, at first instance on 11 March and on 12 March following Sauber's failed appeal, that he be permitted to race in Melbourne.[64] Due to the risk of having its assets seized for not obeying Court orders,[63] Sauber opted to abort participation in Friday morning's first practice session[65] pending an outcome in contempt of court
Based on media speculation, however, thanks to an intervention by Bernie Ecclestone to avoid further negative publicity on the sport,[67] Ericsson and Nasr were able to take part in Friday afternoon's second practice session.[68] The matter was temporarily resolved on Saturday, 14 March 2015, following an announcement by van der Garde that he would forego racing in Melbourne,[69] with a view to finding a more permanent solution in the future.[70] The Sauber team and its new drivers for 2015, Ericsson and Nasr, were thus able to complete the Saturday qualifying session and point-scoring race on the Sunday. Three days later, on 18 March 2015, van der Garde confirmed that he and Sauber had reached, by mutual consent, a settlement that would see him relinquish, once and for all, his rights to race in Formula One with the team in return for compensation in the amount of US$16 million.[67][71] The controversy, however, continued due to a statement released by van der Garde revealing further background and indicating that his intention had also been that of promoting the rights of racing drivers, whose contracts are often dishonoured.
After the resolution of the dispute, Sauber underwent an improvement from the previous year, finishing fifth in the race, their best result all year. They finished the season eighth, ahead of McLaren and Marussia.
On 23 July 2015, Sauber confirmed that Ericsson and Nasr would be retained for .[73]
On 20 July 2016 it was announced that Swiss based investment firm Longbow Finance had bought both Peter Sauber and Monisha Kaltenborn's shares in the company, which made Longbow Finance the sole owner of Sauber. Pascal Picci was announced to take Peter Sauber's role as chairman of the board and president. Monisha Kaltenborn remained as Team principal and CEO of Sauber. The acquisition by Longbow Finance followed a series of speculation about the future of Sauber. The team had been in financial trouble for years before the change of ownership, often being unable to pay salaries to team members on time.[8][74] Longbow's owners are said to include Swedish billionaires Finn Rausing,[75][76] Stefan Persson and Karl-Johan Persson.[76]
During the season, the team only scored points on one occasion; Felipe Nasr's ninth-placed finish in the scored two points for the team, who finished tenth in the Constructors' Championship, one point ahead of Manor.[77]
On 11 November 2016, Sauber announced Ericsson would remain with the team in .[78] On 16 January 2017, the team announced the signing of Pascal Wehrlein, replacing Nasr.[79] After Wehrlein was injured in a crash at the 2017 Race of Champions, Ferrari third driver Antonio Giovinazzi took his place for the first winter test.[80] Despite Wehrlein being fit to take part in the, he later withdrew after participating in the first two practice sessions, with Giovinazzi replacing him for the rest of the race weekend.[81] Giovinazzi again replaced Wehrlein for the following race in China.[82] Days before the 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, it was confirmed that the first ever female F1 team principal Monisha Kaltenborn would be stepping down from the team. Her role was replaced by former Renault team principal Frédéric Vasseur.
- Driver's contractual dispute
- Mid 2016 sale to Longbow Finance S.A.
