Rueda to take over as Sauber sporting director in 2025
Former Ferrari sporting director Inaki Rueda will take over the same position at Sauber in 2025 ahead of its transition into the Audi works team, replacing long-time incumbent Beat Zehnder.
Zehnder has been part of Sauber since the 1980s and will be remaining with the company as director of signature programs and operations, but relinquishing the sporting director role at the start of next year.
“In this new role, Zehnder will ensure the rich heritage of Sauber Motorsport continues to grow, uphold its core values and lead efforts to innovate and shape its future,” Sauber said in a statement. “Throughout 2025, he will fulfill a supervising function to assure the best possible transition as the team grows into its new structures.”
In his place comes Rueda from Ferrari, where he had been sporting director head of race strategy from 2021 until 2023. Early last year, Ravin Jain replaced Rueda in the strategy position, before the Spaniard took on factory-based roles this season.
Also joining Sauber is Giampaolo Dall’Ara, who will be the new head of race engineering at Hinwil. Dall’Ara has previously worked for Sauber but since 2016 has run his own consultancy firm and been part of multiple other motorsport projects.
“The appointment is part of a move to optimize alignment on all car performance-related topics and to ensure a joint operations approach to topics concerning the car’s performance, and as part of which the company integrated the race engineering department into the technical group,” Sauber stated.
Ahead of Audi’s Formula 1 entry in 2026, Sauber added that the leadership changes “infuse the team with renewed confidence as they strengthen the organization as it prepares for future challenges and opportunities, with a bright future as a factory team ahead.”
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