Alfa Romeo back in F1! Sauber says goodbye

The almost legendary Sauber team will no longer be in Formula 1 from this year, as the Swiss team has now been officially renamed Alfa Romeo Racing.

Last year, for the first time since 1985, Alfa indirectly re-entered the F1 Championship as the main sponsor of the Sauber team. In the background, a plan was constantly unfolding to make the brand, which is otherwise owned by the FIAT concern, as well as Ferrari, active in the championship again.

Sauber will already be renamed this season and become a full-fledged factory team of the brand that won the constructive titles of champions in the first seasons of Formula One, 1950 and 1951.

Nevertheless, it is not a purely factory team, as the team structure, as well as ownership, will remain unchanged.

The racing cars, which will be driven by Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi this year, will feature the distinctive logo of Alfa sports cars - the green four-leaf clover.

“After starting to work with Alfa in 2018, our team has progressed at both the sporting as well as the commercial and technical level,” team chief Frederic Vasseur said at the official confirmation.

“This strongly motivated all employees, which was also reflected in our track results,” he continued. "We intend to continue to develop the team in all areas," he added.

The Sauber team first appeared in F1 in 1993, later bought by BMW, but the surname of the founder, Peter Sauber, remained part of the title, even though it was the factory team of the Bavarian carmaker.

The team ranked among the points winners in every season except 2014, and in the 2016 and 2017 seasons they went into a crisis from which they found a way out with Vasseur as boss and close ties with Ferrari.

Due to even closer ties with the team from Maranello, Alfa Romeo will definitely be one of the teams that could provide a surprise this year.