After years of F1’s scriptwriters limiting him to a supporting role, rather than a main character, Valtteri Bottas could hardly have had a better opening chapter written for him after moving to Sauber – then Alfa Romeo – in 2022.
While Kevin Magnussen stole much of the spotlight by finishing one place ahead of him in the opening round in Bahrain, Bottas’s sixth place was still an outstanding result for his opening race with his new team. And with rookie team mate Zhou Guanyu claiming tenth on debut, Bottas was thrilled with the nine points scored by the team at the first attempt.
“It is a great way to start the season,” he said. “Everyone did a good job and we are going in the right direction.”
That opening race was supposed to set the tone for Sauber’s new era with its all-new driver line up. And it appeared to do just that, at first. Through the first nine rounds of 2022, Bottas and Zhou combined for over 50 points to sit sixth in the constructors’ championship – which is where they went on to finish after beating Aston Martin on a tiebreaker.
However, over the last three seasons, Sauber’s status has meandered from midfield mavericks to middling to moribund. Culminating in in today, October 8th, marking one full calendar year since the last time that Sauber came away from a grand prix with a point.
Since the 2023 Qatar Grand Prix, when Bottas and Zhou scored a double points finish in eighth and ninth, neither of the pair have finished inside the top ten even once in the 23 grands prix and five sprint races held since then. Over that same period, every one of Sauber’s nine rivals have scored at least 20 points, with Williams having the next-lowest total with 21, ten fewer than Haas.
After a positive performance at Losail, Sauber’s form varied wildly over the final five rounds of 2023. Following an average showing at Circuit of the Americas, both Bottas and Zhou reached Q3 in Mexico – only the second time the pair had done so over 2023. But despite a promising starting position, both drivers faded through the race to finish well outside of the points.
That was followed by a double Q1 elimination at the next round at Interlagos, but the race itself looked far more promising. That is, until both cars suffered separate overheating problems that forced them to abandon the race to avoid causing severe power unit damage to their cars. Further frustration followed in Las Vegas, where seventh on the grid for Bottas was ruined by him being caught up at the first corner when Fernando Alonso spun in front of him and was hit by Sergio Perez behind, causing severe damage that compromised his entire race. The season then ended with a whisper rather than a roar in Yas Marina, where the team never looked in contention for the top ten all weekend.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Entering 2024 with the same driver line up but a new name and a garish new luminous green livery, Sauber were aiming to build momentum over the coming two seasons until they eventually evolve into Audi’s factory team in 2026. However, the season has been more like a kick in the head than a kick-start for the team’s new era and its bold, aggressive rebranding.
Most depressingly for Sauber, the opening race of the season in Bahrain remains the closest they have come to a top ten finish so far. Despite both drivers being knocked out of Q1, Zhou rose up to tenth in the race with a brilliantly executed strategy before being passed by Lance Stroll in the later laps. Zhou finished 11th, the highest finishing car a lap down and around 11 seconds away from points.
Although the team had clear race pace, Sauber were hamstrung by a major and embarrassing problem. After Bottas suffered a near-minute long pit stop in Bahrain, Zhou faced further troubles in the second race in Jeddah. As it turned out, the team needed to completely redesign their wheel nuts and wheel guns and when there were further problems in round three in Australia, team management apologised to both of their drivers for the continued problems – especially as Bottas had been running tenth until a 30-second pit stop dropped him to the back of the field and destroyed any possibility of battling for points.
As the season progressed, Sauber slipped further and further away from not just the front of the field, but from their nearest rivals too. Aside from a single Q3 appearance for Bottas in China, Saturdays proved soul-crushing fruitless for Sauber over the first 19 rounds. Out of 36 attempts, Bottas and Zhou combined to escape Q1 just eight times between them – the worst record on the grid by a significant margin. While Sauber’s performances in the first five rounds saw them an average of 1.12% slower than the fastest time in the highest session they reached, they have fallen to 1.3% off the ultimate pace over the latest five rounds.
Sauber’s development of their C44 was also falling behind those teams closest to them they they needed to beat to have any hop of points. The team introduced an upgrade package at the Hungarian Grand Prix, but only Bottas had the benefit of it for that weekend and the following race in Spa-Francorchamps. However, it appeared to have little affect on Sauber’s results – Bottas’s finishes of 16th and 15th over those two rounds equalling those of the two races prior to the team’s upgrades.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Entering the summer break comfortably last in the championship, Sauber were still the only team yet to score. Finding some momentum for the second leg of the season would be critical for their prospects of scoring some points before the year’s end. However, the first round back at Zandvoort would end up being “the most difficult race of the season” by the team’s own admission. In a race with no retirements, both Botta and Zhou sank away from the 18 cars in front of them, becoming the only team to finish two laps down on winner Lando Norris.
Since then, Sauber have not come any significantly closer to breaking into the top ten, despite the efforts of their drivers. Particularly those of Bottas, who has regularly been putting in solid performances that have been easy to overlook given the lack of pace of his car. With only six rounds remaining, Sauber are staring down the barrel of being the first team to fail to score a point over a full season since Haas in their infamously underdeveloped 2021 car.
Sauber’s efforts have not been helped by the record-high reliability rate in 2024, that has seen the fewest retirements in any year in the sport’s history on average. Zhou’s 11th place in Bahrain and the team’s 13th place finishes in Monaco, Canada and Spain could easily have produced points in previous seasons with just a handful of retirements for cars ahead.
With Audi having lofty ambitions for their long-anticipated entry into Formula 1 in 2026, the German giant will be hoping that their considerable resources will be enough to drag the team further up the field than where they sit just over a year removed from their moment of truth. But 2025 will be a transitional year for the team, with Nico Hulkenberg joining and his team mate yet to be confirmed.
Whoever joins Hulkenberg, and what impact Audi’s bespoke power unit will have when the next regulations revolution takes place, is a question for the future. For now, the final races for the partnership of Bottas and Zhou are unlikely to any more productive, or less frustrating, than the rest of the 2024 season.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Formula 1
Browse all Formula 1 articles
