THE IDENTITY PARADE
Sauber is flying under new colours before Audi officially arrives in 2026, with an official title which may vary from race to race. Confused? You bet...
Another team to hit the rebrand button. Sauber’s Alfa Romeo deal expired last year and the team sought an interim solution before it becomes Audi in 2026. It’s trading under the Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber name, but the official nomenclature will vary between events. For most it will roll as Stake but, where local legislation frowns on advertising crypto-betting, it will change identity to Kick (a streaming service owned by Stake’s founders).
Following on from a bright 2022, the Hinwil outfit regressed in 2023 as the car lacked downforce and upgrades didn’t deliver the requisite leaps forward relative to other teams. The relative stagnation led to the hiring of James Key as technical chief, the Briton returning for a second spell in Switzerland after departing Mclaren early in 2023. For a team that has often struggled to tempt engineering staff away from the UK, this is good news for Sauber as it can bank outside knowledge in its efforts to progress.
The perception is that 2024 and 2025 will be nothing more than interim years until the full Audi project comes online for 2026, but the German brand will still be expecting success in that time as it lays the foundations for a full works effort. In the 30 years the team has been on the grid (under various guises) it has won once, with Robert Kubica at the 2008 Canadian GP, and that’s unlikely to change for the time being. But that’s not to say the team can’t overachieve if it gets its 2024 design right.
Valtteri Bottas remains team leader, as he casts a much more carefree figure in his life postMercedes. With a newly accrued penchant for exposing his bare backside in a photographic medium, there’s certainly the potential for a “rump Stake” pejorative to be thrown his way. Despite his personal life exhibiting a more unchained nature, he’s still a very fierce competitor – and the same driver who was capable of matching Lewis Hamilton on occasion at Mercedes. His team-mate Zhou Guanyu has earned a third season at the squad, as F2 champion Théo Pourchaire settles in for another year as reserve.
If the changes to the technical team bear fruit, just how high will the Stakes rise? Or will 2024 Kick those future aspirations into touch?