Alfa Romeo Is Coming Back To Formula 1... Sort Of

Alfa Romeo is returning to Formula 1… but not quite in the way that you’d hope.

Alfa has announced a partnership with the struggling Sauber team, which finished last in this year’s championship. It’s the first time the company has been involved with the sport since 1979, when it pulled out at the end of its chain of engine supply deals that started in 1961.

Sauber will be renamed the Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team. Alfa’s family links with Ferrari will help the team keep hold of its Ferrari engine supply deal. Engineers from both sides of the fence will share knowledge and experience in order to improve both the F1 car and Alfa Romeo’s road cars.

The famous Italian brand won the first two Formula 1 world championships with Nino Farina and Juan Manuel Fangio.

Company CEO Sergio Marchionne stressed that his staff would be helping the Sauber team. Meanwhile, Sauber Holding chairman Pascal Picci said that working with Alfa Romeo would help his team develop its technologies and engineering projects.

Alfa Romeo is enjoying success with its Giulia and Stelvio models.

The move mirrors two already in operation on the F1 grid. Aston Martin’s recent cosying-up with Red Bull Racing is the same sort of deal. Also, much like Toro Rosso being the Red Bull test bed for a senior team drive, Ferrari’s junior drivers Charles LeClerc are expected to race in the Sauber seats. The team is looking more like a Ferrari junior team as time passes.

Don’t forget the Haas team already operates in a similar capacity, using Ferrari’s wind tunnel and giving Ferrari more data to analyse in its efforts to make its race car ever faster.

This year it was widely accepted that the Ferrari was the fastest race car at many of the calendar’s slower, twistier circuits. Sauber will be hoping to benefit, if indirectly, from some of that speed.

Source: Autocar