Sauber F1 has a new boss
FORMULA 1 Frenchman Frédéric Vasseur is to become the new team boss and managing director of Sauber in Hinwil. The former Renault employee replaces Monisha Kaltenborn, who has left the company. His name was no longer a secret, but the Hinwil-based company's new owners took their time announcing it until today, Wednesday, July 12. Frédéric Vasseur will be the new Managing Director [...]
His name was no longer a secret, but the new owners of the Hinwil-based company took their time announcing it until today, Wednesday, July 12. Frédéric Vasseur will be the new Managing Director and CEO of Sauber Motorsport AG, and will also head the Sauber F1 Team.
The 49-year-old Frenchman will take up his duties next Monday, July 17, 2017. That is, the day after next weekend's British GP at Silverstone.
Frédéric Vasseur worked for a long time at ART Grand Prix in the forecourt of Formula 1. With him, Nico Rosberg became the first GP2 champion in 2005, followed by Lewis Hamilton.
From Renault Sport to Sauber F1
In 2016, Vasseur crowned his career to date as the new race director at Renault Sport's Formula 1 team. After one year, that was the end of it, and they parted ways again before the start of the 2017 season.
Now Vasseur has been allowed to dock at Sauber, where he must prove that he can manage a Formula 1 team and lead it into the future.
Pascal Picci, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the new Swiss owner company Longbow Finances S.A., is convinced of this in any case. "Frédéric Vasseur's long and successful career in top positions in international motorsport speaks for itself. We are thrilled to welcome him to Sauber."
Frédéric Vasseur himself has so far only expressed himself with the usual phrases before starting a new job.
"I am very proud to join Sauber Motorsport AG and would like to express my sincere thanks to the company's shareholders for the trust they have placed in me. I am impressed by the facilities in Hinwil as well as the talented, capable and ambitious employees. I am very much looking forward to adding my experience and determination to the team and leading everyone in the right direction - in all that they do. I can't wait to start my work with the drivers, engineers and employees. I'm looking forward to contributing to the next important phase in the team's development."
His task now will be to pick up where Monisha Kaltenborn left off before her dismissal a month ago. Namely, to try to get the two drivers Marcus Ericsson and Pascal Wehrlein into the points more often. Most recently, they fell far short of that at the Austrian GP in Spielberg.
That Sauber F1 will soon be overtaken by McLaren-Honda in the 2017 Formula 1 World Championship constructors' standings is only a matter of time, or rather depends on the susceptibility to defects or reliability of the British-Japanese race cars. The German has already scored points twice (8th Spain, 10th Azerbaijan), while the Swede has twice just missed out in eleventh place.
