Credit Suisse Set to Continue Sauber Deal

Sauber sponsors Credit Suisse will renew their deal with the Swiss team when their current contract runs out at the end of the year, according to the company's vice president and head of Formula One affairs Alexandre Fasel.

The deal - which is understood to be worth a little less than $16 million (USD) per year and is more likely to be decreased than increased in the new contract - is not yet concluded. But Fasel confirmed it will be continued for "at least one further year" and probably more.

"We are getting everything that we want out of Formula One," he said with a beaming smile after an evening meal with journalists. But he also claimed that talk of the Formula One sponsorship rate card falling is "not true" and said that Sauber's latest deals are "equivalent to those they struck two or three years ago."

Credit Suisse joined Sauber as a sponsor in January 2001, and later became shareholders in the team, when energy drink makers Red Bull sold their shares back to Sauber in 2002.