However, even if at the helm of the F1 team, Sauber has little to do in terms of day-to-day management. Soon after saving his team from bankruptcy, Sauber appointed Austrian Monisha Kaltenborn as new managing director of the team. Basically, that meant all the in-team decisions belonged to Kaltenborn, with Sauber being in charge of the outfit during race weekends.
Needless to say, the team's progress in the 2010 Formula One championship has been quite slow, as neither Pedro de la Rosa nor Kamui Kobayashi managed to score a single point after 4 rounds. That puts Sauber level with the newly-entrants (Lotus, Virgin and HRT) in terms of points gain this season, which is something Sauber seeks to repair as soon as possible.
In an official BMW Sauber-Ferrari interview, Sauber admitted that there's probably a “deep-seated” reason for the team's slow progress in 2010 and hinted his involvement in the day-to-day operations at Hinwil may become more active in the months to come.
“Yes, that's probably true. When I sold the team to BMW in 2006 I made a clear decision to take a step back. It was important for me to have a certain distance from things. Now I'm discovering that there's quite a lot to do. This process of analysis is underway and we will see the results in the near future,” said Sauber.
Recently, both veteran driver Pedro de la Rosa and technical director James Key revealed that the main problem tackled by BMW Sauber-Ferrari is the lack of finance, which makes parts development harder through the course of the season.
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