One has to feel sorry for Peter Sauber. The team that has been his life was sold to BMW. Peter kept 20% of the business but handed over complete control to the corporate folk down Munich way. He believed that they would look after the team, and more importantly, the people who make up the team. The people at Sauber are not your usual F1 types. Most of them speak Swiss-German and they are not going to take off and get a job in Bicester. If the BMW Sauber team closes down they will lose their jobs. Peter Sauber knows this and he has been doing everything he can in recent days to look after them. The problem is that BMW has not only pulled the plug on its F1 involvement but it wants money from a buyer. This is very unlikely to happen. Honda has to give its F1 team to Ross Brawn and his partners – and the Japanese firm had to hand over the budget for a year as well. BMW may think that the assets in Hinwil have a value, but running the team is so expensive that no-one wants to take it on. The bottom line is that BMW has an asset worth nothing. By the time they realise this it may be too late. The Concorde Agreement has been signed without BMW Sauber. No-one was willing or able to commit to three years in F1 without knowing how they were going to pay for it. BMW does not seem to care. It just wants out. Peter Sauber can hope that FOTA, the FIA and FOM might allow him to sign the Concorde Agreement if he can find the money, but that is a massive risk. Any one of the signatories could block that. Thus Peter must face up to the fact that unless there is a miracle the team is not going to be sold. That is a tragedy. Pulling out of F1 was enough of a slap in the face for the sport from BMW. Wiping out the team at the same time would be unforgiveable. The BMW board may want cash for the assets they paid for, but they are not going to get it in the current environment.
It is a tragedy, in the true sense of the word.
I really agree with you on this one Joe – my heart went out to Peter Sauber when I saw the story on Autosport this morning.
It really underlines the difference in how employee welfare is perceived in Japan versus the West: Honda would be ashamed, dishonoured if the staff were not properly taken care of. The board of BMW should be ashamed too – they were given a chance to save these jobs (and incidentally the team), and they should have taken it. They’ll have to pay redundancy packages now which could have been used to tide the team over the process of a rescue deal, as Honda did.
In addition, if this was in the offing why didn’t they admit it earlier? Announcing the pullout only a week before the agreement deadline gave them only a few days to seek a deal.
As you said in your post, BMW’s behaviour makes it clear that the board don’t understand the realities of how F1 operates. They have come out of this looking like unprofessional, heartless quitters who are taking their ball home after half a bad season. And to hell with the tragedy for the employees of a team that has always been more like a family.
On a personal note, I’m going to miss Dr Mario and his Ned Flanders tash!
Hi Joe, Is there any chance Prodrive, Lola, or someone might buy the team? And also what happened to the rumour that Piquet was going to takeover the team?
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Yes, it is a very sad end for the Sauber team and all its employees.
Perhaps now, all the people who were cheering the idea of a breakaway FOTA/manufacturer controlled championship will finally see that such a thing could never work in practice.
The manufacturer managers in F1 may pontificate on how things should be in F1, but the exit of first Honda and now BMW shows that the likes of Mario Thiessen, Norbert Haug and John Howett really have no control over the destiny of their own teams. If the bean counters at head office say F
It would be a real shame if Sauber disappeared. And a real stain on the BMW badge, too.
Yes, it is a very sad end for the Sauber team and all its employees. Lets hope that Peter Sauber can still manage to save something before it is too late.
Perhaps now, all the people who were cheering the idea of a breakaway FOTA/manufacturer controlled championship will finally see that such a thing could never work in practice.
The manufacturer managers in F1 may pontificate on how things should be in F1, but the exit of first Honda and now BMW (and Ford/Jaguar a few years back) shows that the likes of Mario Thiessen, Norbert Haug and John Howett really have no control over the destiny of their own teams, let alone a championship. If the bean counters at head office say F1 doesn’t add up, then they are out.
One of the complaints I kept hearing from the manufacturers about Max’s proposed budget cap was that he didn’t understand that if such a thing was introduced, lots of employees would have to be laid off unnecessarily. Well, guess what…its probably going to happen to the poor Sauber employees now anyway…and this AFTER the FOTA plan for cutting costs has been agreed to.
Whilst I’m no fan of Max’s increasingly eccentric pronouncements over the past few years, there really is no viable alternative to an FIA controlled F1. The withdrawal of BMW just proves this.
I feal very sorry for Peter Sauber and his people. At least Honda managed to get out with dignity.
I guess Frank Williams and Patrick Head could now swap stories with Peter Sauber about BMW’s business ethics couldn’t they? This just shows what some of the “suits” of the business world are all about – “show me the money” – and to hell with the folk who help them to get where they are. What I don’t get is that BMW should have been aware that getting into a position of competitiveness in F1 takes time and is expensive. I guess their shed of a car this year set them back on their heels, I bet Mario Theissen is wishing he had developed last year’s car when they had an outside chance at the championship and not wasted so much on that meaningless black hole called Kers. Perhaps it’s the Kers of Max that finally beat them.
To make the problem even worse, I think as the days are passing, they have less and less chance to do something. It is a relatively possible scenario to save the team until only one organisation is on the market in the same time (forget STR), but once Renault or even Toyota is up for sale, it would be a complete madness.
I can only hope that the Piquet F1 rumors have some basis (but I don’t think so), because I don’t think that anybody would want to _buy_ an F1 team from the outside nowadays and the new candidates are not likely to be interested. Only the Wurz crew is located near but the Superfund are not seem to be a serious organisation.
Being in Switzerland is a blessing and a curse in the same time. While the team is obviously one of the most valuable, it would survive easier if it would be in the UK.
Fingers crossed for them.
BMW’s thought process in quitting F1 becomes oven more incomprehensible. It really makes you wonder what they are thinking in in Munich.
Appalling decision from BMW to screw Hinwil in this manner.
They shoudl hang their heads in shame, though they will probably not.
Does the possibility not remain, of course, of the FIA, CRH and FOTA / Concorde signatories extending the deadline for BMW Sauber / Sauber / Piquest Sauber / whoever, of signing up and not having to go through the FIA ‘selection process’ (i.e. Cosworth engine? Check)
Being Swiss I am dismayed at this news. BMW should be ashamed. Through this move they might have saved themselves a few inconsequential, and I really dont think very many, millions of Euros, but instead are now receiving a lot of bad press. I would not be surprised if they loose the money they saved, in sales in Switzerland alone.
I think I’ll reserve judgement on “poor”, multi millionaire, Peter Sauber for the time being. We don’t know:
1. how much BMW paid in 2005 for the 80% (Sauber/Credit Suisse) shares;
2. the amortised value of BMW’s investment since 2005;
3. how much Sauber offered to buy the team back for.
Being based in UK did nothing for Super Aguri. I would have thought Superfund would be interested in Sauber.
For all their proclamations about continuing their motorsport support, this whole affair certainly seems to have netted BMW only bad PR.
I’m willing to bet they want to “sell” the team because they want to avoid the Honda/Brawn situation next year. In the off chance someone takes over and the car turns out to be a winning one in 2010, they don’t want to look like [bigger] fools. No, I’m pretty sure they want to make sure the team dies to spare the embarrasment (though what Honda did was very classy).
Agreed, a sad end to a team built by a man who always seemed a byword for integrity in a sport not exactly known for it (unless, of course, perceptions inside differ…)
I wonder if BMW have decided that, if they’re not going to gain any marketing benefits from F1, the weaker they can leave the sport, the better, from their own point of view. Or am I being too cynical?
[…] The plight of Peter Sauber « Joe Saward’s Grand Prix Blog BMW may think that the assets in Hinwil have a value, but running the team is so expensive that no-one wants to take it on. The bottom line is that BMW has an asset worth nothing. By the time they realise this it may be too late. The Concorde Agreement has been signed without BMW Sauber. (tags: bmw F1 Sauber) […]
The more I read of the way BMW is attempting to extricate itself from F1, the stronger my feeling is that its deepest reason wasn’t economics but the way the FIA are running the sport (remember BMW gave two reasons for leaving, sustainability and innovation). Had the main reason been economic, then accepting whatever sum Peter Sauber was offering would have been the most sensible thing to do, for it would have got them money at a time when people can get into F1 at a low cost (as Joe said, it’s keeping a team in F1 that’s expensive) and no other independent buyers appeared to be available.
Whereas if it is primarily a question of governance, BMW is unlikely to care much if the team survives its exit or not.
BWM is a great brand, but you just cannot compare BWM to companies like Toyota or Honda or even Renault, they do not have the same scope of products, they are more or less limited to upper and middle class vehicles with a sporting touch, they do not sell lorries, low budgets cars, engines for ships, etc., so I think they overreached themselves with F!, and with the markets beeing what they are right now, they really are in trouble, so I imagine in a flash of panic they pulled the plug on their F1 involvement. It is a pity, but that is the way iti is.
Spot on, Joe. It’s a tragedy!
One would have hoped that these Havard (or is it Tübingen) trained managers at the head of BMW would have some common sense. But they don’t. If they had, they would have seen the economic slump coming.
manufacturers are not really ‘racers’ they are purely interested in making money – period, this situation was predictable.
BMW may need to reconsider their current stance to protect their brand image which is a really valuable asset. they may need to spend some money on to prevent getting a bad name in the motorsport community and beyound.
One day they will come back to Formula One when its suits them , so saving a few jobs in some sort of transition period would be a Very good investment for them. They are smart people I am pretty sure they will do the right thing – at the moment they hope to sell the team , but if they dont they will probably do something for the staff. I hope.
BMW sells cars, especially here in the U.S. where sales are not only down but interest in Formula One approaches zilch. I would guess the average Ray-Banned Beemerhead here has never heard of F1. They are far more concerned with how they look behind the wheel. The brand’s history hit high gear as an upscale college kid car, and graduated to a better pay scale.
Sauber is sixty-five — a good time to just cash in and retire. If that is not as he sees it, then he has raced in other venues before, so a switch would be hardly new.
“Swiss German” may not be mainstream eurospeak. But if they know what they are doing they will find other jobs, and get paid to learn a second (and more useful) language. Nor can I see Sauber’s facilities simply going to pot.
The bummer is that another “independent”, having made and lost its pact with Der Teufel, has now bottomed out, likely not to return in any form to F1. That is the one thing to be said for Mosley’s defunct cost-cutting plan. It could have driven the manufacturers out and left the racing to the racers rather than to the suits.
But times have changed far beyond that. And I see a real conflict amongst those who, on the one hand, lament the cowboy days and on the other hand think that F1 can never do enough to increase its market share.
thanks for the opportunity given to comment, I visited another opportunity again
BMW would do well to look to Honda and then look up the word “honour” in the dictionary.
As soon as my current BMW is sold, i will get myself a Honda as my own protest, i will never buy another car from BMW.
I hope Peter Sauber can return to F1 as an independant in the future, and wherever he ends up i hope Kubica wins a few GP next year just to prove that BMW had the right driver but a rubbish car. So much for the ultimate driving experience.
I have always loved BMW’s cars. Had planned on getting a M5 of some sort some day but after this, it is really hard to do so.
If BMW does indeed cause the loss of jobs to all those at the facilities I will never support BMW again.
Not in the ALMS, FIA GT, and other Touring Car series.