Drivers Kamui Kobayashi and Pedro De la Rosa unveiled Sauber's 2010
Formula One car on Sunday, with the team confident of being
competitive despite its late takeover of BMW Sauber.
Team principal Peter Sauber said he would have preferred not
to have returned to F1 in such a prominent role but was left no
choice in November but to buy back the team he started and had then
sold to BMW.
"The feeling was very bad," Sauber said from Valencia's
Cheste Circuit. "I was absolutely sure I would never stay in
Formula One. I don't have any problems with Formula One ... but I
preferred to stay like I was doing the last four years."
Despite losing 140 BMW employees and having the budget cut by
40 percent, Sauber said the team's finances are in order and the
focus is now on performance to attract further investment. The
lateness of the takeover left little time to covet sponsors, Sauber
said.
Even though the Swiss team remains without a reserve driver,
Sauber said Nick Heidfeld had to go because the team needed a
"fresh start."
Sauber is confident about the team at least matching BMW
Sauber's performance last year, when it finished a disappointing
sixth. The team will still be called BMW Sauber since that was the
registered name when the buyout occurred.
"The critical thing is how we develop the car," De la Rosa
said.
The changes to the new C-29 car coupled with the ban on
refueling - cars will carry at least 160 kilograms (353 pounds)
more weight - make it nearly impossible to know if the team's hopes
of fighting for points at every race are realistic until it gets on
track.
"You never know how good the car is till you make it to first
qualifying (at the season-opening race) in Bahrain," De La Rosa
said. "It's the typical answer but it is the truth. Testing will be
very, very critical this year."
How the tires respond to the changes will be one of the
trickiest issues, and Sauber brought in De La Rosa just for this
type of insight. The 38-year-old Spaniard spent the past seven
years at McLaren as a test driver, renowned for "discovering the
problems."
"With the new regulations, there's no point in being a test
driver anymore," De la Rosa said about the ban on in-season
testing. "It was very clear to me from the beginning that I had to
go back to racing or I would never get back to racing. It's what I
was born to do."
If De la Rosa brings speed and experience, then Kobayashi
showed as Timo Glock's fill-in at Toyota at the end of last season
that is he also quick and aggressive. Signing for Sauner meangt he
didn't have to go back to Tokyo to work in his father's sushi
restaurant.
"I don't want to change," Kobayashi said. "Twelve years after
starting in karting and I'm in Formula One - it's amazing," the
23-year-old Kobayashi said. "It's important to score points and I
believe we can do that."
