welcome back peter...I hope !

[ESPImperium]

I belive the FIA will convene shortly and soon confirm the Sauber spot. And after they announced their pull out, Toyota immediatly forfited their F1 slot for 2010 that the FIA have control over.

I recon that a decison will be made next week.

[marcush.]

throwing away all that money in the first instance seems so obscene in the current environment and now stating they achieved a very good solution with peter sauber ..
unbelievable ,had they just thought about it realistically in the first place ,the
takeover would have been a much better deal for all sides PLUS good for PR as well
instead of the hoping and uncertainty they created with their unprofessional behaviour.
this way they burnt their reputation in terms of competence on financial and contractual issues as well as their image in terms of employer as the public view was sure they did not try to avoid a lot of redundancies but tried to get as much money as possible out of the pullout...management just lives in different spheres to mere mortals thats the message.

[Fil]

yeah it seems to me the BMW board became greedy, selling to the highest bidder.. who happened to take them for a ride. now that they've realised this, they've had to take the easiest and most PR-friendly choice - Peter Sauber.
I think even they'd be wishing they didn't fumble the situation so badly and had just chosen him straight away.

[Chaparral]

For what its worth I hear that Sauber will be going back to sports car racing (Le Mans and LMP in general) - for what its worth BMW to take care of all redundancies several hundred or more - we shall see.

[lebesset]

so why has he agreed to buy a F1 team then ?

[WhiteBlue]

Blick is reporting that Sauber is set to be announced as 13th team on Monday. Congrats!

[jshaw]

so why has he agreed to buy a F1 team then ?

Because its a race team full of people who know how to run a race team.

It wouldn't be too hard for them to start building sports cars instead of F1 cars, these people can transfer their skills quite easily I'd imagine.

[ISLAMATRON]

plus he wAS still part owner.

[lebesset]

no one in their right mind would pay F1 money to change it to a sports car team

which is why sauber will only buy if he gets an F1 entry , otherwise no deal [ as stated by both parties ]

[ISLAMATRON]

What is "F1 money" for a team these days? I heard Nick Fry bought a team for 1 pound... seeing as Peter Sauber already owned a nice chuck of the team maybe he bought it for less than that ... whatever he will be paying for it(probly not even from his own bank account) it is better than letting the team dissolve and having his share go to being worth ZERO.

This Stefan GP does not look really serious, but one has to think that if anybody buys the "Toyota" F1 "assets" it would include a garunteed spot on the grid since Toyota signed the worthless Concorde and BMW didnt.

[marcush.]

maybe Mr.Sauber has more wit as you´d expect...the deal is official now ,BMW have commited to Sauber getting back his Team to run in F1.
But maybe the other week the FIA decides to give Stefan GP the nod ...as they did with lotus in similar circumstances,as they did with Campos, Manor,USF1...you just cannot be sure if this will not repeat even if I believe Todt will support Sauber .
If they don´t get the entry ,if Sauber had not done this deal surely Saubers work
would go down the drain...but this way around he surely will be able to negotiate a new deal ,more redundancies and shrink the operation to LMP size,but retaining a Class A infrastructure...giving him the chance to take on Pug or Audi no question about that,we all know what companies like Zytek,Pescarolo, Oreca,Dome and Wirth could do.
clever man this prepared for all that might happen.Lets see if the FIA does the sensible thing and keeps Sauber in F1..

[timbo]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/80365
So, no Super Mario at GP paddock?
I gonna miss him

[gibells]

http://planetf1.com/story/0,18954,3213_5731251,00.html

Thats coming from the Steve-O himself. Makes me think that it's Sauber with the 13th slot and Steve GP that's on standby (should another team go down). Should be interesting.

[WhiteBlue]

http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/pr ... _list.aspx?

Sauber is not on the official FIA list!

[Fil]

Neither is Toyota's entry.

It looks like Toyota has the rights to the final grid position at this stage (as per their signing of the Concorde Agreement), pending whether they can sell it on to anyone.

Sauber will have to wait and see what Toyota do.


I would have thought numbers 9/10 would have been left blank for Toyota tho.