Sauber will have a new name in 2024 following the departure of title sponsor Alfa Romeo at the conclusion of the 2023 season.
They will be called Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber next season and 2025. Kick and Stake were already sponsors with the Swiss-based squad. Kick has required the naming rights of the chassis.
Photo Credit: Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake
Stake was already a title sponsor in 2023 as the team’s full name was ‘Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake’. The company that was founded in Australia in 2017 is also the main partner for Everton FC, an iconic club in the English Premier League. Their name can be seen on the front of the player’s jerseys.
Kick is a video streaming service backed by Stake’s co-founders.
Sauber’s history in Formula One dates back all the way to 1993. If you include the spells where they were called BMW Sauber and Alfa Romeo, 2024 will mark 31 years in the sport for them.
Under the Sauber name only, the team scored 10 podiums. Heinz-Harald Frentzen got their first one in 1995 at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza, with home hero Kamui Kobayashi securing their tenth and final one at the 2012 Japanese Grand Prix. That came just over six months after Sergio Pérez was agonisingly close to winning the Malaysian Grand Prix.
But the team’s most successful year to date was in 2008 under the BMW name. They scored 11 podiums, including that famous victory for Robert Kubica in Montreal, with teammate Nick Heidfeld securing a historic 1-2 for them. Had they developed the car instead of focusing on the new regulations for 2009 — which turned out to be a disaster for them — the Polish driver could well have won the Drivers’ Championship.
Their best result under the Alfa Romeo guise was Kimi Räikkönen’s P4 at Interlagos in 2019. But the final year of having the Italian car brand as their title sponsor was pretty poor, finishing P9 in the Constructors’ Championship, only four points ahead of Haas.
Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Team Representative: “Sauber has always been about innovation, breaking the mould and defying convention. The partnership with Kick.com is the latest and boldest display of the philosophy that drives us. Kick.com is redefining the way live streaming is done and they will adopt the same disruptive approach in the world of Formula One. With Kick.com, our goal is to make the next step in finding new and innovative ways to get closer to our fans.”
Bijan Tehrani, Co-Founder at Kick.com: “Kick.com has seen tremendous growth since its inception and is continuing to make waves in the streaming industry. KICK’s content is fast-paced and engaging, like what we witness every Grand Prix weekend. Just like this partnership, KICK was essentially destined for the racetrack. We are thrilled to take our collaboration to an unparalleled magnitude, backed by our knowledge of the motorsport culture, and our passion for cutting-edge technology. Exceptionally, this universally popular sport, aligns perfectly with our product and what we are building at Kick.com.”
Akhil Sarin, Chief Marketing Officer at Kick.com: “We are thrilled to reveal the disruptive collaboration between two innovative brands. With the elevation of KICK’s association with the team from Major Partner to Chassis Naming Rights Partner, this partnership is set to redefine the boundaries of fan engagement, delivering an unprecedented experience for motorsport enthusiasts worldwide. Get ready to embark on an exhilarating journey with Kick.com, where passion meets performance in the fast lane of digital entertainment.”
