With Alfa Romeo out of the picture and Audi on the horizon, “transition” is the name of the game for a team with a new name, Stake.
HINWIL, Switzerland—There’s a saying, “It is not easy being green.” That was the truth on Monday evening when the former Sauber team–and the newly-named Stake F1 team–launched the 2024 Formula 1 challenger with its green and black livery.
Returning as drivers for another season will be the duo of Zhou Guanyu and Valtteri Bottas, who will roll out the car in Barcelona, Spain, next week, followed by the three-day F1 test in Bahrain beginning February 21st.
The team, which lost its Alfa Romeo sponsorship last season, is now under the new name of Stake. Sauber still holds the title of producing cars like this one, and this team will be around for another two seasons until Audi takes over to make it a full works team. The official name is Kick Sauber. Still, the team insisted that the name would remain Stake, an online gambling organization.
Confusing? You bet.
Courtesy F1Lead
But team organizer Alessandro Alunni Bravi sees it differently, arguing that Formula 1 teams have different situations. “A team’s name in Formula One depends on many different elements,” Bravi said, “including commercial partnerships. Our new team identity is the Stake F1 Team, but it’s not that we forget Sauber. We are the Sauber Group, and many people work there together. But we present ourselves in the F1 community with a new team identity and name for the next two seasons. I think that is important. It’s not just commercial as a partnership; it’s a way that we want to approach the Formula One world. It’s not that we forget Sauber, we are the Sauber Group, but our team in F1 is the Stake F1 Team.”
Confusing still? You bet. And it will soon become even more confusing. That’s because the title sponsor will not be advertised at various circuits due to local laws. To that, Bravi had this to say: “We will use a different name, as was the case last year. We have Kick as one of our most important partners, and our chassis name is Kick Sauber, so we will use the second team name where we cannot race as Stake F1 Team.”
