Sauber F1 Without Sponsor in Bahrain

Although hoping to secure a major sponsor for the 2010 Formula One championship – that gets off from as early as this weekend – Peter Sauber will bring his team to Bahrain without an official backer. While some teams have recently announced new title sponsors for the 2010 season, Sauber F1 Team is yet to find a company willing to pour some money into their account for at least one year.

Consequently, the well-designed Sauber C29 cars – as showed in one of our recent reports – will show up on the Bahrain grid in a mostly-blank bodywork. Hopefully, some good results in the first few races will cause some sponsors to look the Sauber way in the near future.

“After the withdrawal of BMW and the takeover of the team, the time was simply too short for us to find a partner or principal sponsor. We only had confirmation of the 13th team entry in December so concrete negotiations (with backers) could only start very late,” said Sauber, according to Switzerland's 20 Minuten.

Shortly after securing that entry in the 2010 F1 championship, BMW Sauber's long-time sponsor Petronas decided to join Mercedes GP for the upcoming few seasons, leaving the Swiss outfit without their main backer in the series. Nevertheless, the 66-year old team owner insisted the lack of sponsors did not have a direct impact over the development of the C29.

“Nevertheless, the 2010 season for us is guaranteed, even though the more sponsors we have, the more we can invest in the development of the car,” added Sauber, who made it very clear that neither Kamui Kobayashi, nor Pedro de la Rosa brought anything (financially) to the table for 2010.

However, he did admit that the signing of the two drivers would benefit the team a lot in the Japanese and Spanish markets, once the season will have gotten under way.

“I hope so. The Spanish and Japanese markets are lucrative, although there has also been the impact of the global financial crisis,” concluded Sauber.