END OF YEAR REPORT: Kick Sauber’s best and worst moments from 2025 and driver head-to-heads

An overhaul of leadership and the driver line-up doesn’t always work out, but fortunately for Kick Sauber, they seemed to thrive off the back of the shake-up going into 2025. Their spot in the Teams' Championship standings might not entirely reflect what Team Principal Jonathan Wheatley called their “extraordinary” achievements, with Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto both experiencing incredible highs to wave a perfect farewell to the Sauber name. Here is the squad’s end of year report…

Best finish

Hulkenberg – 3rd in Britain

Hulkenberg delivered a stellar drive at the action-packed British Grand Prix, where the changeable weather conditions caught many drivers out while the German fell back on his years of experience to charge from 19th place to the podium. Prior to his remarkable drive, he had the unwanted statistic of the most race starts in F1 without a top-three finish, finally bringing an end to it in his 239th Grand Prix.

A perfectly executed strategy and spirited defence against Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton earned him that maiden podium and demonstrated the positive trajectory Sauber were on, with the team only earning one point-scoring result in 2024.

“It’s been a long time coming, hasn’t it?” Hulkenberg said after the magical result. “I always knew we have it in us, and I have it in me somewhere.

“I think we were just really on it – the right calls, the right tyres in the right moment. We made no mistakes and it’s quite incredible.”

Qualifying head-to-head

Hulkenberg 11-12 Bortoleto*

Hulkenberg, who has over a decade’s worth of experience compared to his rookie team mate, has often been praised for his prowess over a single lap, especially when driving for midfield teams that wouldn’t necessarily extract the same performance in race trim. That pattern was reversed this season as he was frequently knocked out of Qualifying early on before going on to surge through the pack, doing so in Australia, Spain and Britain, among others.

Nevertheless, once he had found his feet in his first season after winning the 2024 Formula 2 title, Bortoleto began to shine in Qualifying, beating Hulkenberg’s best showing of 10th in Brazil with P7 in both Hungary and Abu Dhabi to prove that the team made the perfect choice when crafting their line-up for the next few years.

*no score for Sao Paulo GP Qualifying as Bortoleto did not take part following a heavy crash in the Sprint

Race head-to-head

Hulkenberg 12-11 Bortoleto

As their head-to-head statistics show, the Sauber pair were pretty evenly matched this season, with Wheatley explaining at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix that he has “been tremendously proud of the drivers for what they’ve achieved this year and the relationship they have, which is helping to drive the team forward”.

Aside from Hulkenberg’s fairytale podium, Bortoleto tended to exceed expectations in the races, with five points finishes and a stunning sixth place at the Hungarian Grand Prix, where he proved just how much he had improved over the season.

Hulkenberg just pips the Brazilian in the head-to-head, with Bortoleto’s occasional incidents and strategic missteps not helping him out. The older driver’s side of the garage wasn’t without error either – he was disqualified from the Bahrain GP due to excessive skid block wear, and a collision with Pierre Gasly in Qatar caused one of his two DNFs.

*no score for the Bahrain GP as Hulkenberg was disqualified

Best moment

Before Hulkenberg’s arrival, Sauber hadn’t claimed a podium since Kamui Kobayashi took third place at the 2012 Japanese Grand Prix, so the German’s P3 at Silverstone undoubtedly has to go down as their best moment of the season. Not only did it end the team’s patient wait for a return to the rostrum, but it also marked Hulkenberg’s greatest result in his 15-year career.

He received hundreds of messages congratulating him on the emotional achievement, and the result contributed significantly to their total points tally of 70. Speaking before the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, where they took another two points, Wheatley said: “It is strange to have 68 points and be in P9 – if we look historically, that would have been P6 or P7 in the championship.

“I think it just shows that in the hybrid era, what we’ve achieved this year to get that amount of points is extraordinary.”

Worst moment

Bortoleto carried the brunt of the low points this season, notably enduring a dire weekend at his home event in Brazil. It started in the Sprint, where he suffered a massive 57g impact while battling with Williams’ Alex Albon and was thankfully uninjured.

Eager to bounce back, Sauber worked on his car relentlessly but were unable to repair it ahead of Qualifying, leaving the 21-year-old to start the Grand Prix from last place on the grid. He recovered well at lights out, gaining positions before Lance Stroll tapped his car to send him slamming into the barriers for the second time. It was an agonising end to the round, made all the worse by the fact it took place on home soil.

Goals for 2026

After demonstrating remarkable progress this season, the Sauber name will be no more as Audi prepare to complete their full takeover in 2026. With their greatest points total since 2012, they must carry this momentum forward and focus on stabilising their position as a consistent midfield team.

Bortoleto will no longer have the excuse of being a rookie to back up any future collisions, and the team will be hoping that they can rely on both drivers to fight for points in every round and drag them higher up the standings, as their original ambition to finish fifth in the Constructors’ gradually fell away from them in the latter part of 2025.

They have everything in place to succeed next season – a driven, refreshing Team Principal, two brilliant drivers who continue to push each other, and a new identity with Audi keen to hit the ground running in the next era of F1.