Sauber eyes investors, new bosses for F1 team

Peter Sauber

(GMM) Peter Sauber will begin looking for investors and new management when his Hinwil based team is given the green light to contest the 2010 world championship.

In 2006, the now 66-year-old Swiss was content with his 20 per cent share and backseat role as a sponsor consultant after selling the team to BMW.

But with BMW pulling out of formula one and the Qadbak takeover failing, Peter Sauber is reluctantly back in the sport's spotlight, financing the 2010 season with a roster of sponsors.

He told the German language Schweizer Fernsehen that it is a "fact" that his medium term goal is to find new investors and chiefs, because he has no plans to sit "for the next three or four years on the pit wall".

Sauber, currently the sole team owner and principal, said he felt obliged to step in and rescue the F1 outfit he founded in 1993.

"Probably Hinwil would have closed and all jobs would have been lost," he said. "The wind tunnel, one of the very best in Europe, would be redundant.

"It would have been a crying shame," added Sauber.

He is confident the FIA will green-light Sauber's official team entry in the coming days, and thereafter two drivers will be signed.

Sauber said the team's late arrival on the market does not mean there are no quality drivers to choose from.

"There are experienced drivers like Nick Heidfeld, Jarno Trulli, and Pedro de la Rosa lives in Zurich and would be close by.

"Then there are a few boys; (Vitaly) Petrov, and the Japanese Kobayashi," Sauber added.

He admitted that, despite giving the Finn his F1 debut back in 2001, he doesn't believe Kimi Raikkonen is an option.