Sauber and Toyota missing from 2010 entry list

Peter Sauber will begin looking for investors and new management when his Hinwil based team is given the green light to contest the 2010 world championship.

In 2006, the now 66-year-old Swiss was content with his 20 per cent share and backseat role as a sponsor consultant after selling the team to BMW.

But with BMW pulling out of formula one and the Qadbak takeover failing, Peter Sauber is reluctantly back in the sport’s spotlight, financing the 2010 season with a roster of sponsors.

He told the German language Schweizer Fernsehen that it is a “fact” that his medium term goal is to find new investors and chiefs, because he has no plans to sit “for the next three or four years on the pit wall”.

Sauber, currently the sole team owner and principal, said he felt obliged to step in and rescue the F1 outfit he founded in 1993.

“Probably Hinwil would have closed and all jobs would have been lost,” he said.  “The wind tunnel, one of the very best in Europe, would be redundant.

“It would have been a crying shame,” added Sauber.

He is confident the FIA will green-light Sauber’s official team entry in the coming days, and thereafter two drivers will be signed.

Sauber said the team’s late arrival on the market does not mean there are no quality drivers to choose from.

“There are experienced drivers like Nick Heidfeld, Jarno Trulli, and Pedro de la Rosa lives in Zurich and would be close by.

“Then there are a few boys; (Vitaly) Petrov, and the Japanese Kobayashi,” Sauber added.

He admitted that, despite giving the Finn his F1 debut back in 2001, he doesn’t believe Kimi Raikkonen is an option.

Sauber and Toyota missing from 2010 entry list

Both Sauber and Toyota are missing from the FIA’s newly published provisional entry list for the 2010 season.

The list features 12 teams, with a final and thirteenth likely to be added ahead of talks preceding the World Motor Sport Council on December 11.

There has been speculation that, in order to avoid a $150m fine, Toyota has been in talks with a Serbian outfit called Stefan GP about handing over its commitment to the Concorde Agreement.

Sauber, presently on standby should a vacancy arise, will be re-acquired by its founder Peter Sauber only if the FIA grants it an official entry.

The Swiss newspaper Blick said Sauber, 66, was meeting with Bernie Ecclestone on Monday.

The FIA said Toyota “remains formally bound by the Concorde Agreement to put forward a team for participation, though it has indicated that it will not be in a position to do so.

“An announcement will be made regarding this entry in due course.”

Sauber told F1’s official website: “Regarding the slot on the grid I am very confident that we will be given a final confirmation very shortly.”

source: GMM