As the Sauber name fades into history and prepares to re-emerge under Audi’s banner, the team’s original founder Peter Sauber has revealed the sensational secret that Lewis Hamilton almost began his Formula 1 journey in Hinwil.
It is a revelation that rewrites the opening chapter of one of the sport’s greatest careers and casts fresh light on Sauber’s remarkable eye for talent.
Back in the day, Sauber was renowned for spotting future stars before the rest of the paddock caught on. Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Felipe Massa, Kimi Räikkönen, and Robert Kubica all passed through the Swiss outfit on their way to Formula 1 prominence.
Even Michael Schumacher briefly featured on Sauber’s radar, driving for the team’s Mercedes-backed sportscar outfit before his own meteoric rise.
Yet none of those stories carry quite the same shock value as Hamilton’s near-arrival.
“Hardly anyone knows that, around 20 years ago, Lewis Hamilton almost drove for us,” Peter Sauber told Blick’s veteran F1 reporter Roger Benoit.
At the time, Hamilton was firmly within McLaren’s junior programme, supported by Mercedes, but the idea was for the young Briton to gain experience elsewhere before flourishing with the Woking-based outfit.
Peter Sauber with his wife Christiane in Abu Dhabi last month.
“The Brit belonged to McLaren and they wanted to send him to Hinwil for Formula 1 training,” Sauber continued.
“So the McLaren delegation met with Lewis and his father, as well as with our in-house lawyer Monisha Kaltenborn and myself, at Kloten Airport.”
Deals were discussed, futures imagined – and then, abruptly, the moment slipped away.
“The deal fell through because McLaren only wanted to loan him for one year – but we insisted on two years!” the 82-year-old recounted.
That single disagreement sent Hamilton back to McLaren, where history unfolded at breathtaking speed.
In 2007, he stunned Formula 1 with four victories as a rookie and came within a whisker of the world title, before securing the first of his seven championships a year later.
For Sauber, the near-miss remains a fascinating footnote in a long and resilient Formula 1 story.
Despite decades on the grid, the Hinwil squad (partly owned by BMW at one point) claimed just one Grand Prix victory – Robert Kubica’s emotional triumph in Canada in 2008 – yet its influence on the sport has always far outweighed its results.
Now, as the team transitions into Audi’s works operation ahead of 2026, Sauber’s revelation adds another layer to its legacy.
One brief airport meeting, one extra year on a contract – and Formula 1’s modern era might have looked very different indeed.
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