Interview: Sauber talisman Beat Zehnder on 601 consecutive races in F1

In Imola, Sauber celebrated its 600th grand prix, from its humble F1 beginnings in 1993 through a rollercoaster of manufacturer and independent stints before morphing into the Audi works team next year. One man was there for every single race, and as Sauber celebrated its anniversary, so did long-time sporting manager Beat Zehnder.

Zehnder has seen it all: Mercedes, BMW and Red Bull all coming and going, surprise podiums and that magical 2008 Canadian Grand Prix win with Roberto Kubica – but also hard times as the team nearly went bankrupt on several occasions. All good things must come to an end, and Zehnder’s streak of 601 consecutive races ends after Monaco as the Swiss veteran shifts to a factory-based role as Director of Signature Programs and Operations, helping to expand the team’s facilities and building up a test squad.

Spending 33 years in the paddock is impressive enough, but it is especially curious for a man who wasn’t even into racing at all when he got started, 59-year-old Zehnder tells Motorsport.com in wide-ranging interview on his storied career.

Zehnder: “I served an apprenticeship as a mechanic working on the largest ship engines ever built. Huge engines with over 110,000 horsepower, 14 metres tall. The funny thing was that they were built in the middle of landlocked Switzerland. Every time a series of engines would be delivered to a ship – either a luxury liner or an oil tanker – there was a mechanic travelling with the group of engines for two years. This is what I wanted to do. I wanted to see the world. At this time, they really figured out that it’s cheaper to build engines near water and not in the middle of Switzerland, so the production in Switzerland was terminated.

Sauber competed in sportscars with Mercedes-Benz before joining F1

Photo by: Sutton Images

“I always travelled by bike to work and one day I had a flat tyre, so I had to take the train. There I saw an ad from PP Sauber AG in the newspaper, looking for a race team mechanic. ‘Be prepared to travel the world.’ This was exactly what I wanted, so I immediately called him. He invited me for an interview and it lasted 10 minutes because he thought I was too young at the age of 20, with no experience and not even an interest in motorsport. They were competing in sportscar racing and I had no idea what they were doing with these Group C cars. So, he was absolutely right to turn me down, but then it kept on bothering me and three weeks later I called him again. And he hired me immediately, because he needed people to build cars.”
 
MS: Not a lot of people would have called Peter again three weeks later, but you didn’t take no for an answer.

Zehnder: “Yes, it was probably the hardest time for the team, but also the most satisfying time. We were a bunch of young people. I was employee number nine in total. We had Peter Sauber, a team manager, a technical director and a secretary, and then five mechanics. We built up the entire car ourselves. Three weeks after I started, I had to go to my first race in Jerez.”
 
MS: Sauber was a frontrunner in the World Sportscar Championship backed by Mercedes, but then the manufacturer pulled out and moved to McLaren as an engine partner in F1. That must have been a blow, but Peter Sauber then decided to join F1 as well.

Zehnder: “We didn’t see Mercedes’ decision coming. We had a good project going with Harvey Postlethwaite as technical director and Mike Gascoyne as his assistant. When Mercedes pulled the plug Harvey left. Mike stayed for a little bit. As a consequence we didn’t race in ’92, but we prepared for what’s coming, because the infrastructure of a sports car team was completely different to F1.”

MS: In 1993 the team was quite competitive straight away. You finished seventh in the constructors’ championship with Karl Wendlinger and JJ Lehto.

Zehnder: “We did have half a year to test, but yes, it was quite good. Not too many cars finished that first race in Kyalami and hypothetically, Wendlinger could have finished on the podium but he had an electric issue. It was rewarding, because it was a very small team and an awful lot of work. At that time we were around 120 to 150 people.”

MS: Then came 1994, which was a dark year for Formula 1. Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna were killed in Imola, and Wendlinger also had a career-changing crash in Monaco. How difficult was that year?

Zehnder: “Oh, it was horrible. I wanted to stop after Imola, because I was new in racing and for me it was a completely new scenario. And I knew Ratzenberger from sportscars. What made me really angry was when Michele Alboreto’s Minardi lost a wheel during a pitstop. The wheel went like a bullet through Lotus and Ferrari mechanics. No one was thinking about stopping the race and or at least closing the pitlane to bring ambulances in. They carried them off to the medical centre one by one while cars were going through. For me, this was not acceptable. I went to Peter, I shook him and screamed: ‘Stop the race!’. After the race I told him I was out, but then Peter had long conversation with me, and he convinced me to stay.

“It became even tougher 10 days later, with Karl’s accident at the chicane in Monaco. I was standing next to him when they took him out of the car and then immediately realised that it wasn’t looking very good, because he was shaking and had foam everywhere. And then two weeks later we had Andrea Montermini getting hurt in Barcelona. It wasn’t a good time.

“But looking at the positive side, we’ve learned a lot from that moment. We were the first team running with high cockpit walls, which Peter was fighting for. Initially, the FIA didn’t want to let us run them because the cockpit template wouldn’t fit. And then Peter said either you’ll allow us to run them or we’re going to withdraw from the season. We lost about three or four kilometres of top speed due to the drag. But in the end, we convinced FIA president Max Mosley and they allowed us to race.”

Karl Wendlinger’s 1994 Monaco Grand Prix accident was a low point in Sauber’s existence

Photo by: Motorsport Images

MS: Just how crucial was Peter Sauber at that time?

Zehnder: “In many ways he kept the team alive. First of all, he was a role model. The name Sauber means clean in German. He was good to his employees and he didn’t have yachts or luxury cars. Because he was so down to earth, he was really good at convincing partners to join our project.

“Maybe I’m overdoing it a little bit, but Toto [Wolff] is here because of Peter. Peter brought Mercedes back into international racing, because they stopped for 30-odd years after the 1955 Le Mans accident. Red Bull and Petronas were on our car in ’95. With Red Bull we had a disagreement over a driver. Dr Helmut Marko was pushing for Enrique Bernoldi and out of the blue Kimi Raikkonen came up, so there we split apart. But we also had Credit Suisse, BMW… without Peter and the way he presented the team we would have folded a long time ago. “
 
MS: BMW pulling the plug after 2009 was especially hard for the team. The story goes that you were paying for hotel rooms out of your own pocket at one point.

Zehnder: “When Peter sold the company to BMW, he was the owner of 33% of the shares. 67% were owned by Credit Suisse. With the proceeds Peter had from the shares, he had to buy back 100%. And the leasing fee for the V6 was three times as high as the V8, and this killed us.

“And yes, the story is true. At 2016 pre-season testing we missed the first test, and for the second test Peter said we couldn’t afford to go there. But to me missing both tests was the same as declaring bankruptcy. So, I paid for the flights and the hotels for the second test in Barcelona. And I guaranteed with all the credit cards I had that we could get rental equipment for the first race in Melbourne. I used my first credit card, my second credit card, the credit card of my wife. She was not so happy with me… But I did get it all back and Peter invested a lot as well, privately. This went on from 2013 to 2016, and at one point we just ran out.
 
MS: Until Finn Rausing’s Longbow Finance bought the team in July 2016. That must have been a relief.

Zehnder: “Oh, absolutely. Finn was backing Marcus Ericsson for a long time, Bjorn Wirdheim as well, so we knew that he was taking it seriously. He was a fan. The first time I met him I realised he knew more about the history of Sauber than I did. He knew all about what Peter did in the ’60s and the ’70s. We were very lucky that he came around.”

Sauber’s only win came as a BMW works team at the 2008 Canadian Grand Prix with Roberto Kubica. Zehnder is pictured to the left of second-placed Nick Heidfeld. After the following season BMW pulled out as Sauber fought for survival once more

Photo by: Motorsport Images

MS: Funnily enough, after Mercedes and BMW, Sauber is now joining up with its third German car manufacturer following many years of being an independent team. Hinwil’s history has been a real rollercoaster.

Zehnder: “It has, but for most of the teams it has been the same story, except for big car manufacturers. How many times did Jordan change its name? Thankfully F1 has changed massively and the teams’ market value is now huge. You have different possibilities with a car manufacturer, not only the financial backing. It’s the procedures, systems, tools. It’s a different world.

“Everyone in Switzerland and in Neuburg knows what’s at stake. We’re here to win races. Not next year or the year after, but we have a clear roadmap, and we will do everything to fulfil it. We will invest a lot in a new simulator, new simulation tools. We hired 200 people in the last two years and we’re going to add another 200, probably, over the next 18 months. We’re also planning a new campus, because if you want to have 1000 employees you need space for them.”
 
MS: When you reflect on these 33 years, what are some of the standout memories and stories? You must have quite a few…

Zehnder: “Yes, but most of them you can’t publish! (laughs). Johnny Herbert was the funniest guy we ever had. How he pranked the team was unbelievable. Kimi Raikkonen was also special. After 23 races in Formula Renault he came straight into F1 and at the first test in Mugello he couldn’t hold his neck. It’s probably the most physically brutal track there is. He did two or three laps, and then he needed a 45-minute break and a massage from physio Josef Leberer. And then Michael Schumacher came to us and said: ‘Who is this guy? His car control is unbelievable.’ We went ahead with him but told him to do some physical work with Josef first. He was so pissed off because he had already planned some sort of party in Finland with his friends. The first two days, he wouldn’t talk to Josef at all…

“But Kimi was very focused. At his first race in 2001 he was nowhere to be found just 10 minutes before the pitlane opened for the reconnaissance laps. Turns out he was lying under the table with a blanket. And then he said: ‘Give me five more minutes!’ (laughs). He ended up scoring his first point in sixth and his reply was: ‘Well, there’s still five in front of me….'”

MS: Leberer, Ayrton Senna’s legendary physio, remained with Sauber from 1997 until his retirement two years ago. You are also still there. How important is loyalty to you and Sauber?

Zehnder: “Obviously, I had offers from other teams over the years. When BMW announced that they were taking over Sauber in 2005, it took about five minutes for Dietrich Mateschitz to call me with a job offer. But I was so thankful to Peter for giving me the chance to develop myself, and Peter said he needed me to stay for the transition to a factory team. After that I had contact with other teams but the timing was never right, I wouldn’t have walked away when we had those financial difficult times. Switzerland is a beautiful place to be, and loyalty is very important to me.”

Beat Zehnder with Sauber’s new team principal Jonathan Wheatley, who has joined from Red Bull where he was the Swiss veteran’s counterpart as sporting director

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

MS: You said you got into being a mechanic because you wanted to travel the world. It’s fair to say you definitely got your fair share of adventure, then.

Zehnder: “You say that, but especially with the calendar that we have now there is literally no time to travel earlier or stay longer. I’ve been to Melbourne over 25 times and I’ve never seen the city. I’ve probably been to Barcelona 100 times and only made it to downtown Barcelona once. You want to be home now and then as well.”

MS: As you prepare for Audi’s official arrival you will no longer travel to every race after 601 consecutive grands prix. How do you feel about such a big change in your life?

Zehnder: “I don’t know yet. I have two options. Either I have two TV screens at home with access to the strategy tools on one screen and the broadcast on the other. And I invite a lot of friends. The other option is I take a little boat onto the lake of Zurich, ignore the race completely and switch off the phone. We will see.

“It’s definitely going to be a new part in my life. My wife is happy. Am I going to cry? I don’t think so. I’ve only cried once in racing and that was when we were leading the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1991 by three laps and we dropped out after over 21 hours. I will still visit races now and then, because I have some promises to fulfil, but Monaco is my last regular race.”

MS: Is retirement even an option for someone like you?

Zehnder: “No, no, no. I have an awful lot to do. Actually, I was hoping that my new role is a little bit more relaxed, but since I’m responsible for the entire infrastructure for next year, like Audi’s new hospitality, we’re talking about a lot of projects. Let’s see what the future brings. One thing is certain: I don’t think I will get bored in the company! (laughs)“