Sauber were a Formula 1 team founded by Peter Sauber in 1990, which made its debut in the series come 1993.
One of the longest-serving privateer outfits, Sauber started strong in Formula 1 scoring points in their very first race at the 1993 South African Grand Prix, courtesy of JJ Lehto.
The team would have to wait until 1995 to score their first podium in the sport, that arriving at Monza when Heinz-Harald Frentzen pulled off a P3 finish. This was the first season for Sauber operating with sponsorship backing from Red Bull.
In the mid to late 1990s Sauber worked with several drivers who would go on to have success in the sport, with Frentzen joined by the likes of Johnny Herbert and Jean Alesi.
That period as a fully-private outfit though never really delivered any considerable success. Herbert was able to add two more podiums to Sauber's tally after Frentzen, while Alesi scored a P3 finish at the 1998 Belgian Grand Prix, but the team were then forced to wait until Brazil 2001 for their next visit when Nick Heidfeld finished P3 in Brazil.
Frentzen was back on the podium for Sauber at the 2003 United States GP, but come 2006 the Swiss outfit finally went in search of becoming a major player in Formula 1 after the team was sold to BMW, thus becoming the BMW Sauber Formula 1 team.
There was one P3 to come from the 2006 campaign, scored by Heidfeld at the Hungarian Grand Prix, but it was from the following year where this partnership really started to prove its worth.
Now the team were consistent points scorers, collecting 101 across the 2007 campaign to finish P2 in the Constructors' Championship, by far the strongest showing for Sauber to date. P2 for Hiedfeld at the Canadian Grand Prix was also a new high for the outfit.
And come the following year, at the same venue, Robert Kubica claimed BMW Sauber's one and only win in Formula 1. Though the team slipped to P3 in the Constructors' standings, they improved their points tally to 135 and collected a total of 11 podiums across the season.
Sadly though just as it looked like this was the start of BMW Sauber's rise, it actually marked the prelude to their dramatic decline.
Although a pair of P2 finishes arrived in 2009, the F1.09 was well off the pace of its predecessors, with a lack of upgrades meaning BMW Sauber scored only 36 points across the season.
The team would be sold back to Peter Sauber, and so the Sauber F1 team returned for 2010.
Results though were underwhelming, with only 2012 representing a decent campaign for the outfit with Sergio Perez finishing on the podium three times, while Kamui Kobayashi made one visit after P3 at his home race around Suzuka.
Again though this was a false dawn. In 2014 Sauber would finish the season without a point for the first time in their history, while Kobayashi's podium at the 2012 Japanese GP proved to be their final in Formula 1.
In 2018 Alfa Romeo got involved with the struggling Sauber team, marking the birth of Alfa Romeo Sauber, while under the terms of the deal the team became known solely as Alfa Romeo from 2019, though Sauber Motorsport remain behind the operation of the team.
