by VALERIO BARRETTA
Hülkenberg-Sauber, one month for official status
In Germany they are now certain: Nico Hülkenberg he will be a pilot of the Sauber starting from 2025. An agreement which – if confirmed – would be important not only for one of the fittest drivers on the grid, but also for one of the teams that started the season in the worst way, and therefore needs solidity and experience .
The current Haas standard bearer is also German, which makes him even more attractive from an Audi perspective, which would like a strong national representative to combine with a first competitive drive, in order to immediately hit the ground running with the new regulations on power units .
Yesterday we reported how the only thing missing between the two parties is the signature: today new details arrived from Germany on the agreement between Hülkenberg and Sauber, ready to sign a three-year contract. The German, after being on the bench in the three-year period 2020-22, would therefore run until he is 40, a scenario that he would hardly have expected once he left Renault in 2019.
And the other driver?
If Hülkenberg now seems “stuck”, the same cannot be said of the other driver. It is no mystery that Audi F1 project manager Andreas Seidl wants Carlos at all costs Sainz. However, the Spaniard is hesitating, and you can't blame him, considering how Mercedes and potentially Red Bull are on the scene, while Sauber would force him into a (sporting) year of purgatory without promising him paradise at all. According to what has emerged in the last few hours, Sauber would wait for Sainz until mid-May, then turn to Esteban Or with or Pierre Gasley, who can't wait to leave Alpine. In all these scenarios, Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou would be left “on foot”, who were also brought to attention by the Representative Alessandro Alunni Bravi team in the Bahrain tests: their future in Hinwil seems compromised unless convincing performances in the next races.
#market #Sauber #threeyear #contract #ready #Hulkenberg
