Formula 1 | Audi acquires 100% of Sauber

Turning point in the arrival of Audi in Formula 1. The German company has in fact acquired the 100% from the Sauber, in the “fusion” which will have visual effects in 2026 with the official entry of the Four Rings into the Circus, but in fact everything has already started for some time. The situation was accelerated due to increasingly insistent rumors of a step backwards by Audi after the change at the top of the Board of Directors, with Döllner in place of Duesmann, that is, the one who pushed quite a bit for this adventure announced in Spa over the weekend of Belgian Grand Prix of 2022. In recent months, however, it was thought that the house of Ingolstadt wanted to pull the handbrake, this was because gods would appear much higher costs than expected, but everything was in fact denied by this news which had already been in the air for a few days.

Indeed, 2026 is much closer than one might imagine, and incorporating the factory now Sauber di Hinwil it means accelerating the process of union between the two companies, the employees who will have to work there and the strengthening of the structures. In all of this, Andreas Seidl was confirmed as CEO of the Audi Formula 1 team, while Oliver Hoffman will still be the head of the Board of Directors of Sauber.

Oliver Hoffmann and Markus Duesmann during the announcement of Audi in Belgium in 2022

Audi drivers: Sainz, Vettel and Hulkenberg among the candidates?

An open construction site regarding the pilots market. It's no secret how Carlos Sainz could be the point of reference for the future German team, but the lack of confirmation in Classic Ferrari for sale (it should have been a biennial, ed.) somewhat messed up the plans of the Spanish driver, who most likely imagined ending his adventure in red at the end of 2026, only to then move on to the Four Rings. But this can't happen, so what do we do? It is anticipated by a year compared to the arrival of Audi, making it a year in Stake/Kick/Sauber or what is it called?

It's complicated to think of Sainz relegated to the second part of the lineup, and so we look around, also because the confirmations of Bottas e Zhou are anything but taken for granted, and to tell the truth they were not even taken for granted for 2024. The German figure is therefore not excluded, with Nico Hulkenberg e Mick Schumacher on background. More suggestive would be the return of sebastian vettel, but here we are traveling in the mere field of hypotheses.