Pictures: Sauber reveals first images of its 2017 car

2017 F1 cars

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The first pictures of the new Sauber C36 for 2017 have been revealed.

Sauber is entering the 2017 season with a revised livery following the departure of Felipe Nasr and his sponsors. The C36 has made its debut in blue and white with a gold logo marking the team’s “25 years in Formula One”.

Team principal Monisha Kaltenborn says the team “clearly have to improve” in 2017 after finishing tenth out of eleven teams last year. “With the Sauber C36-Ferrerai we have a solid basis as well as the resources to further develop the Sauber C36-Ferrari through the season. This will be important to establish in mid-field.”

Interactive: Compare the 2017 and 2016 Saubers
“Together with Longbow Finance SA we have great opportunities to be competitive again and to return to previous successes in Formula One,” she added. “We want to position ourselves with a new approach, and we have already taken the first steps in order to build a solid foundation for the future.”

The new car is wider than its predecessor due to the new regulations introduced for 2017. However the team has decided to use a 2016-specification Ferrari power unit for the coming season.

Technical director Jorg Zander explained the decision to use a year-old engine, saying it is “a tried and tested system with higher durability to begin with.”

“Being able to get started early and defining the engine environment was an advantage because the team was familiar with the engine and the transmission as well as the cooling requirements the engine entailed.”

Zander believes the new regulations may offer some opportunities for Sauber. “Basically, big teams also have an advantage when it comes to major changes in the regulations,” he said. “but when the cards are reshuffled new opportunities always present themselves as well.”

Previous Sauber F1 cars

Five years ago: Sauber’s C31

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    130 comments on “Pictures: Sauber reveals first images of its 2017 car”

    1. This is such a sweet looking car! I love the combination of gold, blue and white, it looks like a great modernized retro livery!

      Well done to Sauber, I did not expect such a good livery from them! :O

      1. looks great on shape and still well above average on colour scheme (I liked the yellow-blue).

        the only bit i detest is the ‘shark fin’.

        1. Sauber agrees with you, that’s probably why the shark fin is black.

        2. I don’t understand the hatred for the shark fins, i love them, give the car a more aggressive look

        3. Me too – I thought all the cars had to be the same triangular shape there (which looks just as bad – I wish the engine covers would just be sculpted like the blue part here, and the sidepods)

          Reminds me of Damon Hill’s Arrow for some reason…

        4. If they write 25 Years on the helmets, do the drivers get grid penalties for displaying the wrong number?

        5. All looks good except shark fin and OMG… what a giant front wing! Snow plow.

      2. Stunning, absolutely stunning.

        I agree, I wasn’t expecting that at all!

      3. looks great. the rear angle image reminds me somewhat of the Willams/Rothman ’94 livery, but modern. excelent stuff.

    2. Look at that air box/cooling inlet!
      This has me VERY excited for the rest of the week!

      Great work Sauber!

      1. I agree, what an exciting design

      2. I wondered if the smaller radiator intake would give them some grief in the slower races like Monaco, where there is a lot of accelerating combined with lower top speeds.

      3. The sidepods too, can only wonder what the likes of redbull, mercedes and force india will come up with

    3. Interesting livery, not quite sure if it’s better than the last one, i was quite fond of it.
      That big white empty space is sad though

      1. Yes, and also the fact Sauber is celebrating it’s 25 year in F1 alone, with Silanna and a couple other partners.

        Aesthetically, the suspension barely looks any wider as the tyres grew wider, the car is longer so it feels much like the same old proportions, the rear wings all have to be swept back which is going to be a bit boring, as honestly that profile also looks ugly and a1 gp alike. The floor and the bargeboards are a little different, I’m not sure how well those bargeboards will look whilst in motion. The car seems to be tightly package, as if it was an pre 2014 car, that is the case as the car has much more space for packaging growing longer and wider, anyway I wouldn’t be surprised to see cars even more extreme on that area. The chassis getting slimmer is good aesthetically but still it’s not Williams fw18 good, the tyres and suspension ratios don’t allow for that nor the length of the car, it’s like a scaled up 2016 car. In short, interesting concepts but overall it’s a scaled up 2016 car, smaller driver, swept back wings.

    4. That looks great, I like the livery! These new cars are brilliant so far!

      1. haha – so far we have only seen one properly. ok williams. but you could tell that that was a computer restructure of the 2016 car.
        but i do agree. this is good – even if the 25 years isnt a proper sponser. plus the white is an improvement.

    5. Am I the only one who doesn’t like it? It’s a step up from the last few years, but still…

      1. It’s not ugly, just it’s not gorgeous either imo

      2. No, you’re not. Between the big ol’ plank nose, the not quite hidden shark fin and the weird livery that is not what I think of as an attractive race car. Plenty of space for some sponsors though!

      3. I’m with you @hugh11, I think it’s the white, doesn’t match, the blue tone is amazing. The actual car looks good, and the side view is greast, but the livery is a mess imo

        Don’t really understand what they wanted with that white parts, it masks the sidepods completely, which for me are the best part of the car, I had to glue my face to the screen to appreciate their shape.

        It is not like they had sponsors to please, unless they are showing those parts on purpose for someone to come and fill in the blanks

      4. No you’re not. I think it looks awful and the colour scheme is very messy.

      5. Pat Ruadh (@fullcoursecaution)
        20th February 2017, 10:54

        I’m not a fan either. Looks like a hodge-podge committee design to me.

        The 25 years graphic looks like a team in the 90s trying advertise JPS or 555 cigarettes in a country with tobacco sponsorship censors, ‘Buzzin and Hornets’ style.

        I seem to have been misinformed too as I thought they had agreed against the sweptback rear wings. Also is it impossible to write a rule to ban these damned thumb noses?

        Back of the class

      6. @hugh11 I don’t like it either. Not just the livery, the general shape of the car. It doesn’t look wide, it looks like it’s just 1 scale up. It looks longer rather than wider, probably because the body in itself has not been widened at all, just the floor. I like the rear tho, looks much more aggressive.

        The livery is better than last year, but that’s not saying much… But if Sauber, with their limited budget, can create something this intricate, I wonder what we’ll see in the next few days!

        1. @fer-no65 I agree, not with the rear but the rest. I’m excited for the same reasons, with what we’ll see in the next days too.

      7. @hugh11 You are not the only one. It’s not exactly like the pre 98 cars. These cars look like a scaled up 2016 car with some new details, the barge-boards and the wings.

    6. Wow, impressive. I’m really looking forward to the rest of the week….

    7. Dear Lord, Ligier is back!

      1. Haha true ☺

        1. Johnny Hakkinen
          20th February 2017, 11:40

          I expect Olivier wilk be quick once again in tight Monaco circuit with that Lig… eueeeee… Sauber.

          1. Eueeeee? You meant “bwoah”…

      2. Oh man! I had the same thought exactly!!! Only waiting until Prost takes the team over ;)

    8. Love the livery, -las for the car. Am i correct in seeing ot has a “blade” style roll hoop? Also those air intakes look very intrace up there

    9. That is a great livery. Although I always loved the old Banco one too. With McLaren and STR also changing liveries, expecting a nice field this year, not so monochrome as we came to expected from about 2007-2014

    10. It’s really worrisome to see so few sponsors on the car though… I hope Sauber survives :c

      1. ExcitedAbout17
        20th February 2017, 9:59

        same here.
        It seems to be only Silanna (not even main positions), and a few minor ones (MODO, AutoBild, Edox)

        They should have NASR on the sidepods as his driving in Brazil might bring in the most money this year!

      2. Yes, I am frustrated by the attitude of F1’s TV presentation towards teams like Manor, Sauber, Force India, etc. They paid the same entry fee as the front running teams, so surely they are entitled to the same TV coverage as them, but no, apparently not. F1 expects teams to get corporate sponsorship so they can finance their cars, but then doesn’t do their part and show the cars (with the corporate logos on them) on TV. Which raises the question of how much extra do Sauber have to pay to get equal coverage?

    11. It also looks strikingly aggressive. Lovely.

    12. Looks like the backmarker they will propably will be.

    13. If a team can’t find a single sponsor the management team should be sacked. It’s ridiculous.

      1. That’s unfair. F1’s TV presentation makes it difficult for Sauber to attract corporate sponsorship, or rather to attract corporates who are prepared to spend the amount Sauber need to produce a car that can compete at the front of the grid knowing their logos won’t be noticed by the TV cameras. The only time we saw a Sauber car was when they had Blue Flags waved at them, and that was accompanied by the commentators complaining they weren’t moving out of the way fast enough, yet that was the only way the driver could get their car to be seen on TV.
        The cars at the front of the grid also happen to be the ones that cost F1 the most in terms of the TV rights payout, yet they are also the ones who seem to get almost exclusive coverage.

        1. It’s not unfair. This is not the first week month or year this team hasn’t attracted sponsors. Either they have a commercial strategy which is missing the mark or nobody wants to be associated with them. Either way, a clean out is the best way to start in such a prolonged rut.

      2. If Title sponsors are hard to come by, why not get a bunch of smaller sponsors. i would think $ is $. Or maybe sell one off sponsorship for individual races? Each nation/race surely has local or national businesses that would want the spotlight for the week or two surrounding the event. In todays world it may be hard to find a $20 million plus title sponsor(I have no idea what the going rate would be). Nascar is a good example of this.

      3. No title sponsors in F1 anymore? Sad really. At least they could have some fun with the gaping void: YOUR NAME HERE.

        As for the car…between this and the Williams it appears that a group of overweight aerodynamicists stepped on a 2016 car and squished it a little, but stopped when the fugly shark fins dug into their feet.

    14. Anyone noticed the two wings connected with the sidepods. aren’t they a bit odd? Their orientation looks like they are creating lift instead of downforce. Channelling air to the inlets on the floor maybe?

      Any aerodynamicist around?

      1. I am sure it is about directing airflow, yeah. Maybe they try to do someting to guide flow from the front (bargeboards) over the rear wing?

        1. don’t know @bascb if I were to guess I think it would be something related to those aerodynamic details on the floor just in front of the rear wheels, those wings appear to be channelling air on that direction. Maybe they weren’t at all happy with air distribution around the sidepods and decided to give it a bit more help?

          I don’t think they would like air going over the rear wing, they should be relying on it to create downforce on the rear-axel, unless I didn’t properly understood what you were trying to say…

          That rear wing is gorgeous btw

          just noticed the ellipse shaped devices under the nose, don’t remember seeing those anywhere else. It seems there are much more details with this new rules set. Maybe racing won’t be interesting, but these things make the cars appealing to me

    15. Rothmans Sauber-Ferrari. I like it.

      1. That’s right, @paulk! I was trying to put my finger on which cigarette packet this livery reminded me of!

    16. If you’ve not got any sponsors the least you can do is come up with a good-looking livery. Sauber haven’t even managed to do that much in recent years so this is a step forwards in that respect.

      More interesting is that at first glance the level of aero development on this seems pretty high.

      1. That’s what I was thinking @keithcollantine. Their aero solutions seem to be very complicated compared to the render that Williams put out last week. I am sure that the final FW40 will be more sophisticated than we saw in the render…well at least I hope it will be for their sake.

      2. Agree on both accounts there @keithcollantine, it certainly improved the livery and hid less of the aero-details than Williams did.

        After having many pundits mention that the noses would not be ugly, I must say that i am kind of worried all cars will have the limp stub nose this year though! Admittedly it doesn’t look horrible, but beautiful, it is not.

        1. upon a closer look, it seems Sauber have edited out the detail on the upper edge of the bargeboard in front of the sidepods just like Wiliams did.

          It sure has a large part of the floor exposed in the read. And it is long (using a lot of room for aero?)

      3. Michael Brown (@)
        20th February 2017, 12:37

        I must be one of the few who liked the 2012 livery, but that car looked blocky compared to the curves this one has

      4. Sadly

        Beautiful livery but no main sponsors, hope they can find as soon as posible .. maybe this soft launching is the marketing ways to attracting new sponsors… or just make sauber club mark again

    17. Nice car, just wish they put some colour on the shark fin.

      The lack of sponsors is a tad alarming but not surprising. I’ve counted three and some minor ones on the sidepods. Hope someone takes up those big white spaces on the sidepods.

    18. Sweet sweet car.Looking forward to Melbourne. If only the sound could match the looks.

    19. The black fin seems out of place, paint it blue as the rest of the engine cover.
      I’m quite interested by that bare carbon vertical wing right behind the bargeboard…can we have a closeup?

    20. I like the livery, hopefully we see sponsors soon on those white sidepods.

    21. The colours il the livery are perfect, the hue of blue is carefully chosen. But the paint job appears done without logic. It vaguely reminds me of the Russian Time GP2 car. The split air intake? I thought we’d seen the end of those, sadly I was wrong. And boy does it look long, I see more length than width honestly.

      1. Well just look at how much of the floor is “unused”. imagine if they had 90ies style sidepods, that thing would look enormous.

    22. Not bad, such a shame that we have the shark fins back again though! They’ll look especially bad in side profile if the shark fins are going to be taller than the rear wings. Painted black on a black background isn’t so bad in these images, but wait until we get the full colour ones!!! blurghh!

    23. Why is there no colour on the sharkfin?
      (unless intentionally kept black to hide some aero parts)

      1. I think its intentionally black to hide the ugliness of it just like the 2014 caterhamnose as an example.

    24. It is striking that both Williams and Sauber go for big air intakes on top and small air intakes in the sidepods. Why is that the way to go in 2017?

      1. Maybe it also was the way to go in 2015/16 already, just that first STR discovered the advantages, and then Mercedes, while others only got to it now, as they had to redesign the whole car anyway @matthijs?

        It provides for smaller sidepods so the flow over the floor/diffuser is better, and maybe now with the lower rearwing, that also changes how much of a block it is to the rearwing.

    25. This car is going to light up 2016….oops, I mean 17. Look out Manor/Mercedes. Oh, wait…

      1. There seems to be quite a bit of detailed aero on this car at this stage. I suspect they’ve ploughed as much of their budget into this early design as possible in order to attract a sponsor early in the season from a couple of Q3 appearances, maybe a good points finish, but will tail off as the season goes on and they haven’t got money to keep up development.

    26. Not really sure what to think of it.. Hate the fin, like the paintjob! But I feel like it is too complex.. Those little winglets connected to the sidepods are really confusing me… Well, as long as it’s a midfield contender it’s all good!

      1. the white is messing it up @gordess

        btw, any news on how people will be able to watch F1 back in Portugal?

        1. Yeah, maybe if it was all in blue I would like it better, @johnmilk.

          I know how I’ll probably watch it, but there are still no news about who the new broadcaster is going to be!

          1. pff what an embarrassment. Maybe there will be some luck and RTP will grab it

          2. @gordess sporttv is rumoured to have initiated negotiations to broadcast it

            1. @johnmilk, RTP would be great, but I highly doubt it! I never liked watching it on SportTV so I always watched Skysports F1’s transmition

    27. The Blade Runner (@)
      20th February 2017, 10:26

      It looks like a packet of Rothmans cigarettes from the 1980s.

    28. I like it, aero looks good and the lower rear wing looks great! Looks aggressive !
      Livery is good and lets hope they are looking at some sponsors to fill in the white, if not I may go a bit more blue there.

      Looking forward to the next one!! :)

    29. That looks really, really good. The aero solutions look quite intricate, which is just what I was expecting from all of these new cars. So glad launch season is properly upon us now!

    30. If Sauber, which is the poorest and least-staffed F1 team, can produce a car this complex, can’t imagine what others will manage to put out.

    31. Looks good, looks like “make them look more agressive” has certainly been achieved.
      But that shark fin, geez….such a shame. I never “read” THAT in the new rules

    32. Not sure, but I’d like to know too. F1 Fanatic is my main source of good quality F1 pics…

    33. i like how the ?increased length? leads to a bit of a gentler slope to the nose, especially on the williams

    34. Looks much better than the Williams that’s for sure! Without the shark fin and the excessive white it would be perfect, a modern classic even( I know that’s extreme but that’s how much I like the shape and the blue+gold livery of the C36)

    35. Beautiful livery. Brings back memories of Ligier, the 1997 Arrows, and also a bit of the 1999 BAR.
      Still going to finish dead last, probably.

    36. Love this livery by sauber ,but if they remove the fin from the engine cover then it will look more stunning more gorgeous

    37. Ferrari F2008 first came to my mind when I saw the article thumbnail image.

    38. Looks good. The livery is an improvement. I also like the return of the shark fin. From the side view it looks like a race car, sleek and sculpted. As opposed to looking boxy and ugly. I’m excited what the rest have come up with

    39. another team suffering without a big sponsor.
      many things to fix on that..

    40. What a mess these half-retro 2017 things are…… this form of F1 car looks so dated now.

    41. Interesting, I think it says a lot about their position. Can’t win a sponsor for the life of them and it’s better at this point to sell the teams heritage itself to further potential investment. Couldn’t be any clearer other than if they went with “your name here”.

      Quite like the livery though.

    42. Livery, gorgeous.

      Car shape, meh. Growing on me a little, but the thumb noses are driving me crazy with disappointment, and the delta wing isn’t quite as ‘delta’ as I imagined.

      Plus, there seem to be a lot of messy appendages already, so I dread to think what they’ll look like come the season’s end.

    43. This car is beautiful. Love the livery, and the shape. Once again though, the one thing that bothers me is the protrusion on the nose. Hopefully they are banned for next season.

    44. Looks good overall but we appear to be slowly going morphing back to the chimneys and fins era that reached its pomp/low point with 2008 McLaren. Exhausts look great, pity they wont sound great and the sharkfin is horrible, along with wheel covers a dead end that only engineers who don’t give a dam about aesthetics would countenance. Was there good reason, like safety, that they have been allowed back?

      Do still get the impression these are not what we’ll see in Oz in 6 weeks.

    45. One thing I find interesting is the lack of a visible S-duct. Especially after the very aggressive design revealed on the Williams and the fact Sauber were one of the first teams to run with one.
      I’m also another fan of the new livery, hopefully the white spaces won’t be blank for too long though.

    46. 1996 Ligier livery making a comeback

    47. Any shots of the rear view yet?

    48. Urgh, I hate it.

      The rear wing looks like its come from Wacky Races, the font of the “25 Years in F1” strap-line looks like it belongs on a dairy product and the fairly nice blue/gold combo is ruined by a carbon black shark-fin that makes the whole thing look as elegant as a chainsaw. I DETEST shark-fins…

      …it’s is incredible that this car uniquely combines both the most repulsive shapes of yesteryear in the shark-fin with the ongoing aesthetic malaise of today with the stubby nose…

    49. Great livery, love it.

      Also, the side view with the swept back rear wing looks amazing. I think if Williams had shown that view, the reception to their car would not have been that lukewarm

    50. Good:
      * Wider tyres and car.
      * Sidepods to rear bodywork looks really interesting.
      * Rear wing is low and wide.
      * Low nose remains.
      Bad:
      * Car is too long (and heavy).
      * Massive front wings in a silly plan-view delta shape.
      * Oblique rear wings for purely aesthetic grounds. It doesn’t look ‘aggressive’ it looks silly.
      * Don’t mind shark fins usually, but totally out of proportion with rear wing.
      * thumb nose.

      1. I think the shark-fin’s relation to the rear wing is probably why i like it, it reminds me of the F2008’s proportions.

      2. I like the oblique rear wings, makes it feel as if the car is going very fast. I am sure it will look even better when in motion through fast corners

        1. Fair enough. I think each to their own. It just feels a little fake to me.

    51. Hate the shark fin just as much as I did when they ran them last. Looks hideously stupid!

    52. What’s with the random blue splodge on the sidepods? The shark fin being black actually draws attention to it, and the lack of sponsors is a huge concern.

      I don’t get how football teams can get huge sponsors etc. Do the formula 1 teams price themselves out? Surely even just a sponsorship of £500,000 for a sidepod is better than nothing?!

    53. Why didn’t make the shark-fin in metallic blue too???

    54. I don’t mind the blue accents on the side especially the smaller ones and the blue in the back but there’s a blue “blotch” on the side that has an inexplicable shape and just destroys the silhouette of the car. If I didn’t know any better, I would think they accidentally dropped paint on the side and then covered it up.

      They may have pulled that accent off if they had used gold and a more coherent shape that follows the contrours of the car.

      I’d like to see it with that corrected.

      I also think the fin might have been more interesting in white or gold. They are trying to hide it but maybe it should be highlighted. They are obviously switching from the “sport” blue and yellow (aka IKEA) combination to a more classy combination.

    55. Questions about picture copyright are removed. Why the censurship all of a sudden? If you change your rules from last year you should have the guts to annouce it too.

    56. It’s an improvement, though of course that’s not saying much. Kinda reminiscent of Williams Rothmans… but aesthetically that’s a very strange choice of design and the back of the sidepods with the extra white stripe just randomly sitting there. Anyhoo, hope they have a much better season.

    57. Wow, I loved it, it reminds me of the 90s Ligier car liveries, and the gold actually worked really well. Also, the design is much more sophisticated than I expected for a struggling team. If we compare with that 2011 livery and car design…that was ugly! This is just really well accomplished, I really hope that Sauber start moving forwards from now on.

    58. We’ve had the Ferrauber before.

      Livery wise, this is the Williauber!

    59. Racecar is racecar backwards
      20th February 2017, 14:57

      I hope they put the drivers race number in that blue semi circle 2/3rds up the sidepod. That would look awesome.

    60. petebaldwin (@)
      20th February 2017, 14:58

      That’s my favourite livery in years! Well done Sauber – completely unexpected.

    61. f1 is back ,by far the best looking car since the mp4 20

    62. Noone brought it up, so maybe the similarity is not that obvious, but at first glance, this livery reminded me a lot of the 1995 Pacific Ilmor car. Hopefully this Sauber proves to be a lot more successful…

      1. sorry, Pacific Ford*

    63. I assume the big “25 years” are to cover up for a lack of sponsorship.

    64. it sure is a great looking livery

    65. So the livery went from looking like a furniture moving truck to a Swiss chocolate wrapper

    66. Really good looking car.
      Looking foward to this week new cars.

    67. What a livery. Love it

    68. As I’ve said before. The williams renders were fools gold. This is what the technical teams had prepared us for the 2017 cars. This is a full 2017 design, probably the wings and diffuser are to be revised but this is a 2017 chassis not the williams renders. It has the outlandish bargeboards and the sharkfin that every engineer predicted.

    69. Looking nice with the gold trimmings! Just the “prehensile penile” at the front spoils it.

    70. This one screams 1996 Ligier

    71. I don’t really care what the cars look like. I just want the season and testing to start.

      Any services to stream races from, even if a week or two later, keep forgetting I ditched network/cable tv. That’s how much I miss the other junk.

    72. I never liked shark fins. Gotta have seperation affecting the resr wing with sny kind of cross wind or corner drift. But what do I know? I predict it is gone by end of season. Need to couple wing low pressure air to diffuser, so no shark fin but different endplates me thinks we’ll see. Al la nissan GTP from the 80’s

    73. It sounds to me that they’re putting all their eggs in the start of the season basket, hoping there’s engine retirements with the new power units. They’ll be sitting ducks at the end of the season with no further development on their engine, and Sauber are not known for the mid-season development.

      I hope it works out for them! HAAS might have something to say about it though…

    74. Hey Keith, why cannot we save the photos anymore?

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