Kaltenborn Walks Away From Sauber?

[Paul Jeffrey]

Word in the paddock suggests that long time team principle Monisha Kaltenborn has resigned from her position within the Sauber Formula One team.

Kaltenborn, 46, was the Sauber team CEO and the first female team principal in F1 following her promotion through the ranks on the back of the departure of BMW factory support in 2010. She is widely regarded as a respected and sensible member of the Formula One fraternity and is seen by many as one of the key players in securing the teams future following financial struggles in recent years.

With many wondering what the future holds for the team following the recent takeover by Swiss investment group Longbow Finance at the end of last season, Kaltenborn was retained in her previous role to head up the team as it looks to regroup and fight its way back into a midfield position within the Formula One grid.

However after a disastrous start to the current campaign that has seen the Swiss team fail to register a regular assault on a points paying position, it is understood that Sauber and Kaltenborn have agreed to part ways from each other with immediate effect.

Although yet to be officially confirmed by the squad, Sky Sports understand that the termination of the relationship between the two comes in the wake of a clash of opinions on the way forward for Sauber in Formula One.

"There is significant speculation that what caused her to leave the team is that she wanted equal treatment between the two drivers Pascal Wehrlein and Marcus Ericsson," Sky Sports Craig Slater reported from Baku.

"Whereby the team's owners wanted to give preferential treatment to Ericsson, the Swede, who is closely linked to the group that bought the team."
​

Sauber are expected to head into the upcoming Azerbaijan Grand Prix this weekend without an official Team Principle following the departure of Kaltenborn and team namesake Peter Sauber, who left the outfit as part of the purchase deal by Longbow last year.

More news to follow as and when it becomes available...

Check out the Formula One sub forum here at RaceDepartment for news and chat regarding the biggest racing series in the world..

Do you think the departure of Kaltenborn is a positive or negative for the struggling Sauber team? Can they regroup and fight back to the midfield of the Grand Prix grid again? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[VaporOne]

So.. Rumors indicate Colin Kolles might be the replacment..
WOW
Bykolles and Honda leading the Sauber assault 2018..
Its like when 2 diffrent memes decides to collaborate...
One leads a team that couldnt last more then 7 laps at Le mans..
The other one has made mclaren a no point scoring team..
Memes matched in heaven..
IM GETTING HYPED..

no disrespect to sauber fans

Honeslty im abit shocked about the team owners decisions..
As a swede i cant see Marcus being better then pascal at any moment..
Pascal is a really good driver..
I can understand the move to hondas.. Its gotta be tough when you are forced using outdated ferari engines. But atleast the older ferrari engines are alot more relible still.. But Honda perhaps takes their act more serious and could make Sauber a common pointscoring middletable team again?..

Taking on Colin Kolles.. I have no comment for that or maybe i have.. He has done alot of progress with limited resources and sponsors.. But.. Its still Colin Kolles.. Cant belive how slow the factory supported Audi R10s were under his command (Joest had the year before managed to hit 3.23 at le mans.. Kolles got them at 3.31 the year after..) .. Lets not mention the clm 01 or his previous f1 days..

 

[CC]

My heart is broken , what to do now ?

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Taking on Colin Kolles.. I have no comment for that or maybe i have.. He has done alot of progress with limited resources and sponsors.. But.. Its still Colin Kolles.. Cant belive how slow the factory supported Audi R10s were under his command (Joest had the year before managed to hit 3.23 at le mans.. Kolles got them at 3.31 the year after..) .. Lets not mention the clm 01 or his previous f1 days..

The guy is able to work magic with little money though. I don't think many others could've guided a team through Midland-Spyker-Force India and stilling getting in good people to the team. And I don't think anyone could've been able to get Hispania to the grid like Kolles did. That was one amazing turn-around. How he (and his father) managed to run an F3 team, DTM team and two private (but slow) R10's the same year, I don't know. Neither do I know how they manage to run (erhm, or at least build the car and pay for it all) the ByKolles team either. The only "failure" he have had was Caterham, but then again, he wasn't the TP there. But he did join along the same time the Ericsson backers pushed money in the team.

With Kolles there, I would expect either Christian Klien, James Rossiter, Adrian Sutil, or maybe Narain Karthikeyan or Vitantonio Liuzzi to make an appearance during the season.

 

[Tr3voRR]

lol her and Ericsson are a joke.

 

[GTSpeedster]

removed by user

 

[Neilski]

Kaltenborn's body language has been all wrong for many months now - hasn't looked happy at all.

And as for HRT and other back-of-grid teams, I confess I've never understood the attraction of running a team which almost never scores points and is constantly on the brink of financial collapse. Not good for the fans certainly and also doesn't seem like it can be much fun for any of the team personnel either...
Perhaps I'm missing the point.

 

[GAIAjohan]

You've never seen Minardi then?!
That was just great if they scored a point. Despite all cash problems they had sponsors in contrary to Sauber or McLaren these days.
They always tried to have drivers with talent, no Ericsson would've been at Minardi..

Minardi was awesome. Other teams respected Minardi.
Today there's not enough privateers, and especially not enough privateers with the passion of Minardi or Tyrrell..

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Kaltenborn's body language has been all wrong for many months now - hasn't looked happy at all.

And as for HRT and other back-of-grid teams, I confess I've never understood the attraction of running a team which almost never scores points and is constantly on the brink of financial collapse. Not good for the fans certainly and also doesn't seem like it can be much fun for any of the team personnel either...
Perhaps I'm missing the point.

Unknown talents need a place to start. Adrian Newey started out in Fittipaldi, which while the name sounds good, the team was awful. I mean, with a driver like Emerson Fittipaldi, who just came from 4 seasons where he was either number 1 or 2 overall, and then scoring three points in the whole season...
Anyway, he moved on to March(Leyton House) - the team had scored one point the last season, and the first Newey-car took two podiums that year, and I think they was 6th in WCC. of course, it was a Newey car so there were compromises, but it was a very good car. His next car didn't score points, and his third for Leyton House scored another 2nd place. This gave him the chance to work for Williams.
Ross Brawn actually started his F1 life in Williams, but this was before Williams had scored a point as a constructor(not counting the years as a customer team, or as Frank Williams Racing Cars). And he then worked for Haas together with Neil Oatley (designed the McLarens that won in 89,90,91,98 and 99) before moving to Arrows and Jaguar before joining Benetton.
Rory Byrne was with Toleman from their pre-F1 days, and through the struggling times before Senna joined, and then Benetton and Ferrari.

Thing is, that these teams provides chances for less proven people. Just think if you want to work in F1 yourself, it is easier (while not easy) to get a job in a new, small team, with less results etc. than in Ferrari. But if you join a team like that, you are "in the circle" and can progress. It's a brilliant proving ground!

They always tried to have drivers with talent, no Ericsson would've been at Minardi..

Minardi was awesome. Other teams respected Minardi.
Today there's not enough privateers, and especially not enough privateers with the passion of Minardi or Tyrrell..

And if they had awful pay-drivers (Alex Yoong, Tarso Marques, Gaston Mazzacane). That was often to finance the other guy who was talented. Marques/Yoong - Alonso in 01. Yoong - Webber in 02.

Oh how I wonder how it would've turned out if Minardi actually would've had the Mugen-Honda engine in 95. That car was good!

 

[Flammenjc]

If Kolles gets involved then say goodbye to Sauber. Nothing he's been involved with ever came to something good.

 

[Gary Ludlum]

The team was doomed since the day Peter left it. Call it quits before going more deeper down the trench I say.

 

[Omer Said]

You've never seen Minardi then?!
That was just great if they scored a point. Despite all cash problems they had sponsors in contrary to Sauber or McLaren these days.
They always tried to have drivers with talent, no Ericsson would've been at Minardi..

Minardi was awesome. Other teams respected Minardi.
Today there's not enough privateers, and especially not enough privateers with the passion of Minardi or Tyrrell..

Sauber is a passionate team as much as Minardi in my opinion. Regarding drivers; Frentzen, Raikkonen and Massa are just some of the examples that makes the team very respectable. Peter Sauber actually endured even more than Giancarlo Minardi, but the economic situation of the sport is only getting worse for such small teams. A big shame to see them crawl in the back, but I have still hopes as the team showed great performance in 2012.

Regarding Kaltenborn, it is very strange that she actually did not quit after that driver contracts scandal! I believe the new manager will be better in any case.

 

[Neilski]

I watched Minardi for years, and never fully understood why they had sponsors It's true though that the backmarkers these days seem to have a harder time finding sponsors and cash in general - maybe the TV coverage and the money split is part of the problem there.
Also, I do get that the slow teams can be a breeding ground for talent (in some cases at least!), but I still can't somehow make the leap to those guys truly enjoying being uncompetitive... I mean, I'm sure it's a buzz to move up to F1 from a lower formula, but after a season of coming last or nearly last, I'd have thought it would get pretty old.
Meh, maybe I should try harder to get it
Edit: there's always the buzz of beating the hell out of your team-mate

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

If Kolles gets involved then say goodbye to Sauber. Nothing he's been involved with ever came to something good.

*cough* Force India *cough*

 

[Flammenjc]

*cough* Force India *cough*

Read up on the history then, cos he was locked out basically of any position once Malyja took over so he did nothing for them as they wouldn't let him do anything, stroke of genius if you ask me.

But, Midland, Spyker, HRT, Kodewa, Lotus LMP2 all failed.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Read up on the history then, cos he was locked out basically of any position once Malyja took over so he did nothing for them as they wouldn't let him do anything, stroke of genius if you ask me.

But, Midland, Spyker, HRT, Kodewa, Lotus LMP2 all failed.

He was ousted after the 08 season, and stayed out his contract without doing anything. But there is very little that can be done from December 08 that will make a big impact on 09, compared to what's been done earlier.

Midland, Spyker, HRT - all teams with next to no money. What is expected to happen? HRT actually did a very good job in 2011 on by far the lowest budget.
Kodewa, Lotus LMP2 is the same team, and Lotus didn't put money in to the team, just like with the F1-team, the Lotus was just a name.
The teams are run on a low budget. I have no idea were the money they have comes from, but they are just low-budget entries. Nothing great can be expected, but they are filling up the grid, and somehow they don't give up either.

It would be interesting to see how Kolles would do in a team with a tiny bit of money at least.

 

[Flammenjc]

Well, I won't say I told you so, if it happens [the he even gets the job], because the failure WILL come if he arrives there.

 

[Nick Gregory]

Memes matched in heaven..
IM GETTING HYPED..

I predict they will be especially dank, and ripe for karma farming on /r/formula1.

 

[Deleted member 130869]

Should have been sacked long ago for the having three drivers under valid contracts for only two seats... Good riddance.

Worst bit being she has two law degrees and worked at Sauber for 10 years handling the legal side. She had no experience anywhere with administration. So whoever put her in charge in 2010 also needs to not be allowed to make decisions.

Word I have is that she was forced to leave, not that she decided on her own, due to not favoring Ericsson over Wehrlein as it was done last year, with Ericsson running the latest material and his teammate setups. Whoever comes in next will have their hand forced anyway, so it's likely Sauber will keep struggling to find resources from sponsors instead of relying on driver money.

 

[Jim Layee]

Can anyone name an F1 team that has never had more drivers than seats ? The idiot in that debacle was the driver who tried to line his own pocket by threatening legal action he had no chance of ever winning.

Kaltenborn helped keep Sauber afloat through a period of dire financial strife and managed to secure the Ferrari deal that kept them in business long enough to find serious investment.