F1 Tech | How Sauber prepared for Audi's arrival in 2026

Sauber’s 2025 season has been characterised by ups and downs, related to the competitiveness of the car. Despite the huge amount of upgrades brought for the whole season, there were races where the team struggled to find the right working window for the C45, especially in the first half of the season.

Sauber managed to score 70 points in 24 races and 6 sprints, a very good step forward compared to the 4 points scored in 2024, which relegated the team down to last place in the Constructors’ Championship. The progress has been real, and it’s a good starting point for 2026.

The first eight races of the season have been anything but easy for Sauber. Since the beginning of the year, in fact, the car had shown a really strong performance in the high-speed corners, thanks to the great level of downforce generated by the Venturi channels and a very stiff aerodynamic platform.

However, the C45 seemed to struggle particularly on more complete layouts, where a bigger working window was needed, together with a very good mechanical grip in the slow-speed corners. These two aspects made it challenging for the team to make the car work in the different weather and conditions faced.

After the Monaco Grand Prix, the team was going through a tough moment, with just 6 points on the board scored by Hulkenberg at the first race in Melbourne.

The turning point, however, coincided with the Spanish Grand Prix: for that weekend, the team brought a series of specific upgrades to some crucial areas of the car, including a new floor and new side pods, which showed a very similar design to the specification used during testing in Bahrain and in the first race.

These major changes gave engineers a car with a wider working window, which was easier to set up and faster than the previous specification. This inevitably had a big impact on drivers too: with an easier and quicker car, they both managed to express their full potential. Hulkenberg got a phenomenal P6 in Spain, in front of Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton, but the best was yet to come for the German.

He managed to finish in P8 in Canada and 9th in Austria (where the team also scored the first double-points of the season), but it was at the British Grand Prix that he showed off his talent and experience: despite qualifying in P19, he stayed calm and made the right calls to pit, eventually finishing in an extraordinary P3, getting on the podium for the first time of his career.

After this great performance, Sauber managed to get the 6th place in the Constructors’ Championship, proof of the great work done by the whole team. With 10 additional points scored between Spa-Francorchamps and Hungary, the team then decided to completely shift their attention to 2026, starting from Zandvoort onwards.

This choice inevitably had an impact on performance as well: even if the C45 had reached a very good level of performance, other minor teams, like Haas and VCARB, didn’t stop the car’s development, finding more performance than Sauber did. As a consequence, despite scoring points in 6 of the last 10 races, it wasn’t enough for the Kick Sauber F1 Team to keep their 6th position in the Championship, losing out to Haas, VCARB, and Aston Martin.

For Sauber, 2025 represented a year of transition, but for the team led by Mattia Binotto, it was important to demonstrate unity and cohesion, as well as the ability to solve the difficult technical situation that arose at the beginning of the year. These aspects are worth much more than ninth place in the Constructors' Championship, as they convey the idea that the foundations laid for a very ambitious future project are solid.

For them, 2026 will represent the very first big challenge, especially from the engine point of view: despite having tons of experience in other Championships, the team will have to show adaptability and especially skill in building a new engine from scratch, in one of the most competitive environments the world of motorsport has ever seen.