Auto Racing|With Audi Poised to Take Over, Sauber Rises in the F1 Standings

Times are changing at the Sauber Formula 1 team. The operation, for so long a minnow, will morph into a much bigger operation when Audi takes over in 2026, a move more than three years in the making.

“I’m sitting here excited. The idea that in a very short period of time we’re going to be opening the garage door with our own chassis and our own power unit, it just seems incredible,” Jonathan Wheatley, team principal, said in an interview this month. The team currently uses Ferrari power units.

Wheatley joined Sauber in April, following almost 20 years with Red Bull as team manager and sporting director, playing a role in six constructors’ titles. He also won titles as a mechanic with Benetton and Renault in the mid-1990s and mid-2000s.

“I found a team that was younger than I expected, a team with a lot of enthusiastic people, a lot of bright ideas,” Wheatley said. “It was immediately obvious there was some structure that needed to be put around that and some clear communication.”

Wheatley is part of a management structure that includes Mattia Binotto, the former Ferrari team principal, who last August was appointed chief operating officer and chief technical officer of Sauber Motorsport. Binotto, Wheatley said, “had been doing a lot of hard work before I arrived, and there was a whole load of good stuff happening.”

Audi confirmed in mid-2022 that it would enter Formula 1 for the first time in 2026, as Sauber’s strategic partner. It took majority ownership in 2024.