Formula 1: Audi announces partnership with Sauber for 2026

The deal between the Ingolstadt-based company and the racing team from Heinville, Switzerland, had been rumored for months and was only tacitly confirmed at the end of August when Alfa Romeo announced that it would end the partnership with Sauber at the end of the 2023 season.

Audi officially announced its entry into Formula 1 on the first day of the Belgian GP at Spa. She hadn’t decided at the time which group she would work with, but now her plan was clear. Announcing Sauber Motorsports as a “strategic partner”, it was said that a percentage of the Swiss team would be bought by Audi.

Sauber Motorsports owner Finn Rausing has said he will remain involved but it is widely believed that Audi will take a majority stake in the Swiss team and of course have full management. But that’s something that has yet to be confirmed.

So the purchase rate isn’t known yet, but we do know that in 2026, Sauber will become Audi’s official works team. The team’s cars are built in Hineville, the engines at the Audi Formula Racing GmbH headquarters in Neuburg. The plant in Neuburg is already expanding rapidly, and around 120 people were employed in the design and development of Audi’s first engine in Formula 1.

As part of the deal, Rausing is said to have stipulated that no Hineville workers would be laid off. For the latter, it is obvious that this agreement is a guarantee of the team’s long-term survival, while Audi acquires in Sauber a leading factory with one of the most modern wind tunnels in F1 – with the ambition to invest in the expansion.

For the next three years, the Hineville team will have nothing to do with Audi. In 2023 it will still race as the Alfa Romeo F1, while the Sauber name will return to the grid in 2024 and 25 before possibly being lost forever. In all three years the team will continue to use Ferrari engines.

After the deal was announced, the team’s athletic director Fred Wasser said: “The partnership between Audi AG and Sauber Motorsport is a crucial step for our team on our way towards the front rows of the grid. It is the best choice going forward and we are absolutely confident that we can help Audi achieve the goals it has set for its F1 journey.”

Photo credit: Audi Motorsport Media