1993 Mercedes-Benz Sauber C12

The first ‘turbo era’ of Formula One ended with the 1988 Formula One season. The 1.5 litre turbocharged engines were phased out in favour of normally aspirated 3.5 litre engines. A massive demand for engine suppliers and a constant influx of new teams saw car manufacturers like Subaru, Porsche and Lamborghini enter Formula One as engine suppliers and sometimes buying out existing teams. Other projects never progressed beyond design studies, such as one carried out by Simtek for BMW. It was a turbulent time that led to the withdrawal of many small teams and even more famous marques such as Brabham and Lotus.
From 1988 Sauber acted as Mercedes’ official work team with Sauber C9. The partnership reached its zenith in 1989, a one-two in the legendary Le Mans 24-hour race backed up by the Drivers’ and Manufacturers’ titles in the World Sports Car Championship.
 
A year later the team repeated its success in the World Sports Car Championship with Sauber C11. This period also saw the establishment of the junior team, an idea of Sauber’s then business partner Jochen Neerpasch. Michael Schumacher, Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Karl Wendlinger were selected for the team. Peter Sauber helped all three to take the step up into Formula One. With the luster of the World Sports Car Championship beginning to fade, Mercedes set its sights on Formula One and, in summer 1991, F1 was declared a joint project. Preparations hit full swing and Sauber built a new factory at its premises in Hinwil.

However, bad news was on its way that November.  The challenging economic climate at the time caused the Mercedes Board of Management to decide not to enter Formula One with a works team. Sauber was left with two options: pocket the financial settlement and turn its back on racing or use it as start-up capital for its own grand prix operation. In January 1992 Sauber decided to take the plunge, and in autumn that year the C12, a continuation of Sauber’s naming policy from sports car construction  (the ‘C’ was a reference to Peter Sauber’s wife Christine) completed its first testing session. Even though, a planned Mercedes-Benz collaboration with Sauber to enter their own Formula One team was shelved, behind closed doors Mercedes continued to fund Sauber’s Formula One project.

On 14th March 1993, two Sauber C12 racers, powered by V10 Ilmor engines (730HP and a red limit at 14.000 rpm) – piloted by Karl Wendlinger and JJ Lehto – lined up, as planned, on the grid at Kyalami for the South African Grand Prix. The cars were soon turning heads not only for their sharp FW14-like lines and striking black livery but their impressive performance. The two World Championship points earned by Finnish driver Lehto for fifth place in the race ensured the team’s debut was a widely acclaimed success (Two points under the scoring system at the time). Despite this impressive entrance to the grand prix scene, over the remainder of the season the team rarely saw the finish line due to unreliability and racing accidents. However, they proved their form was not a flash in the pan recording a slow stream of points finishes and rarely finishing outside the top ten when they actually completed a race distance. Despite not achieving a podium, they ended the season with twelve points, seventh out of the thirteen original entries.

In the race, the car showsed some unreliability: Lehto and Wendlinger They collected 9 retreats each, for a total of 18. Of these, 12 were due to mechanical problems (including 7 broken engine); the remaining six were due to pilot error. The C12 was still competitive in the lower middle of the world rankings: the points finishes were a total of 6, 4 Wendlinger (for a total of 7 points) and 2 of Lehto (5 points). The 12 points collected so positioned themselves at the 12th place in the constructors.

The drivers were for all 16 races of the season Karl Wendlinger and JJ Lehto.