USA: Peter Sauber in the Friday Five

By Phil Huff
June 18 2005

Sauber Petronas team boss Peter Sauber took part in the 'Friday Five' press conference, talking to the media about selling the team, BMW, Jacques, 2008 and more. Here's what he had to say...

Peter, first of all, we all thought your heart was totally in your racing and your team. So can I ask why do you want to sell your team?

It's principally not my intention to sell the team but I think it's very important to do the right things at the right moment. Is that enough for you?

Because I've heard you wanted to safeguard the future of the team to some extent, to make sure the future of the team is safe.

That's normal. I follow two goals. I think it's important to make progress on the sporting side and that has to be the intention for every team. And the other point is it's important to keep the infrastructure and the people.

Can you confirm the BMW deal for the engine supply will be announced before the end of the month or not?

I can't confirm but I hope because we need an engine for the next season and I hope we can do it before the end of June.

On another controversial subject, obviously there is a lot of interest here, Jacques Villeneuve, a former Indy 500 winner. Is his position safe within the team?

Since the beginning of the season, there were constantly reports that we would replace Jacques. The fact is that he is still here, as you can see, and there is nothing to add to this.

If I could go on to this question about the proposed 2008 regulations, I'm sure you will say that it's a starting point for negotiation. But there must be bits that you like and bits that you don't like, so I would be very interested to hear your comments on that.

I read proposals and proposals over the last, I don't know, couple of years. And if I'm honest, I didn't read the new one completely.

Completely?

Yeah. I think the direction is clear to save money, but that's the direction since many years. And when we change something, Formula One gets more expensive and not cheaper, except maybe the engine for two weekends. But all the other things, all the rule changes we had, Formula One gets more expensive.

Are you planning to read it when you get back to Europe?

Yeah, sure. I think it's important to read it, yeah.

Still no chance of you running a third car?

No. Makes no sense. It is too expensive.

The business aspect of Formula One is increasingly important now. How difficult is it for you to find the sporting side of it? Or are you just feeling pretty objective about it? Can you separate the two quite easily?

I think the sport is very important for me. I'm a racer and I like Formula One. But unfortunately we need a lot of money to do it properly.

There's been some talk that the calendar might shrink next year from 19 races. Do you think that's desirable? If so, do you have any guidance on whether the calendar will decrease next year?

About the 19 races? I hope to have less, 17 is enough. Especially all this back-to-back races, it's too much for the team. And it could be worse next season because there is, I believe next season is the Soccer World Championship or something and maybe we have more back-to-back races than this year.

We used to start the season in Argentina or Brazil or wherever in January and I think finish in Australia sometimes in November. Is there any reason we can't expand the envelope of the season or does it have to be in the window that it is for car-build reasons and things like that?

I don't know. I think we need the time during the winter to build the new car and to develop the new car. We have not had a lot of testing. We started in the end of November, two tests in December and some tests in January and February. It's not a lot. And when we reduce the tests during the season, I think the tests over the winter are necessary. And it's too complicated to do that together with races, especially for us because we have a small test team and we do all the tests with only one car.