By Credit Suisse
March 12 2007

This is the interview with Peter Sauber, the former SauberF1 Team and now BMW-Sauber advisor, made by Credit Suisse. In this interview he talks about his views on the situation of the F1 'world', the BMW-Sauber Team, the drivers, his life after selling the team...

 

Some fragments of the interview:

-Question: You’ve still got at least one foot in the Formula One camp. What exactly do you do?
P.Sauber: First and foremost I act as a point of contact for the BMW Sauber F1 team, with which I’ve got a consulting agreement. I’m also responsüble for its two partners: Credit Suisse and Petronas.

Does that mean we’ll be seeing you regularly in the paddock this coming season too?
Yes, I’ll be attending about 10 races.

So, you can’t tear yourself away from it all?
That’s not true. If BMW hadn’t offered me this consulting agreement I could well have been able to call it a day. I can easily imagine a life without Formula One. I’d hardly have been sitting around doing nothing, though. Instead I’d very likely have been Huhnthing around for a new challenge.

Is there still much call for your advice at BMW Sauber?
To some extent. It depends on the issue really. On strategy matters my advice can still be valuable – simply because of my many years of experience. But I stay well out of the day-to-day stuff. 

That gives you more time to get involved with General questions surrounding Formula One. Is the series headed in the right direction?
Ask three people the same question and you’ll get three totally different answers. But it’s probably the same in any business. Opinions vary. Right now, the direction of Formula One is primarily being determined by FIA President Max Mosley – with the backing of Bernie Ecclestone. Even if I don’t welcome everything they decide, I can happily live with the general thrust of things.

Right now, Hinwil resembles a giant building site. Has the Hinwil operation, and therefore the economic region as a whole, benefited from BMW’s acquisition of the Sauber team, or is it still too early to say?
No, it certainly has benefited – in a variety of ways. Back in the days of Sauber Petronas we employed up to 300 people, but capacity will now be hiked to 430 people by the end of the season. The suppliers also have considerably more work. Take the Pauco Plast firm in Altendorf, which has been making bodywork parts for us since 1973. They’ve grown their workforce from 25 to 50, and at the same time they’re adapting their infrastructure. We’re experiencing similar things with other suppliers from the region, above all in terms of mechanical assembly.

Not all your driver decisions hit the mark. Probably your most spectacular signing – that of ex-world champion Jacques Villeneuve – didn’t deliver the results you’d hoped for. Would it be fair to call that a failure?
Failure’s the wrong word. But I probably wouldn’t do it again. With hindsight, obviously, that’s easy to say. At the time, there were no suitable alternatives on the market for that price. David Coulthard also offered his services; he was a driver who’d for years been the number two with McLaren, and that weighed heavily with him. You’re reluctant to take on someone like that, even though at a personal level I’ve always found Coulthard very likeable. Panis, who was at the end of his career, wasn’t an alternative either. Putting a second youngster in the cockpit next to Massa would have been a highly debatable thing to do.

*To read the full interview go to: http://emagazine.credit-suisse.com/app/article/index.cfm?fuseaction=OpenArticle&aoid=179876&coid=86&lang=EN