The junior racing genius who saved Sauber

Few of Formula 1's itinerant gin palaces have witnessed such great shifts in fortune (and ownership) as Alfa Romeo's stately tented hospitality unit, which was first used in the mid-2000s when BMW owned the Swiss-based team.

A rotating cast of characters has inhabited it since then; as F1 Racing ascends the stairs within the light, airy central vestibule, we pass the chair Robert Kubica inhabited when interviewed for his first cover feature over 11 years ago.

This afternoon a moderately communicative Kimi Räikkönen is wrapping up an open media session in the same corner and, as the assembled scribblers stagger downstairs wondering if their voice recorders contain anything useable, a contemplative stillness returns once more.

Innumerable faces have come and gone but this place was built to last - probably for the best, since for the first half of this decade the team formerly known as Sauber was on its financial uppers.

Now, with Tetra Pak money in the bank and an increasingly productive alliance with Ferrari and Alfa Romeo paying dividends on the track, this team is going places once again - thanks in part to the guiding hand of the man we've come to see.

Prodding a recessed metal button in the wall grants access to one of this unit's more cloistered enclosures, screened behind sliding doors and shuttered glass. Relaxing in his office is Frederic Vasseur, one of motor racing's sharpest but least ostentatious movers and shakers.

Apart from those currently on the Red Bull books, most of the drivers on the F1 grid have passed through teams run by him on their way to the top...

F1 Racing: What was it that set you on the road to Formula 1?

Frederic Vasseur: It's a passion, not for F1 in itself but for racing. I started at school, doing karting, then afterwards I tried to develop my Formula Renault team.

For sure it was very small and we had low resources, we were struggling a little bit, but this was an important period of my professional life. At that stage I had to cover more or less all the functions of the team - this gives you a different view of the business - and then it grew step by step.

We went from Formula Renault to French F3, working with Renault, won that championship with David Saelens [in 1998], then we had another opportunity when the French and German championships merged at the end of 2002 [to become the F3 Euro Series].

We started a collaboration with Mercedes and this was the beginning of a good journey for us - ASM won the championship six times in a row and in the middle of this period I started to develop with Nicolas [Todt] the idea of ART Grand Prix for GP2.

That was a big challenge from the beginning because we were starting from scratch - we hadn't done Formula 3000 [which GP2 replaced in 2005].

We won GP2 in 2005 with Nico [Rosberg], then 2006 with Lewis [Hamilton] - and Lewis had been with ASM in the Euro Series in 2005. It was a very exciting time, but even at this stage I wasn't thinking about F1. I was really happy in the junior series and had plenty of talented drivers - Paul di Resta, Sebastian Vettel. To have drivers of this calibre was very exciting. I always want to win so this period went very well!

F1R: We've probably covered a bit more ground than we usually would with a first question - but before we rewind a bit, since you mentioned running Lewis in '05, can we ask you about that? Because that was just after he'd had his first big stumble in his career, wasn't it? The first year in the F3 Euro Series with Manor didn't go so well...

FV: That was 2004 - you'll have to check the dates because sometimes I get it wrong! - and we'd been running Jamie Green and Alex Premat [in the F3 Euro Series]. Jamie won the championship and Lewis was P5, I think. I had a call from Martin [Whitmarsh, then COO of McLaren-Mercedes] and I'll remember this call all my life. I was at Le Mans for the Formula Renault, on the pitwall, and my phone rang - "Hello - it's Martin Whitmarsh..."

He asked me to come to Woking and that was the beginning of the collaboration.

Honestly, for the company it was a great success to win GP2 with Nico and Lewis, and the others, but the important step was to win that first European championship and we did that with Jamie [who went on to drive for Mercedes and Audi in DTM]. He did an incredible job to win with ASM at the beginning.

F1R: OK, let's rewind a little further now. Presumably it's fair to say that as a youth you were quite competitive as well...

FV: Oh that's fair to say! [hoots with laughter]

F1R: ...so did you want to be a racing driver or have you always wanted to be an engineer, entrepreneur, team boss?

FV: I did karting from eight to 17 but I stopped for two reasons. The first was that my mother was the boss and she didn't like it at all. The second is that I wasn't talented enough. [laughs] I want to win, and I knew that if I was going to win in motor racing it wasn't going to be behind the wheel.

I went back to engineering school, and then a year or so later, when I had to do an internship, my team-mate in karting [Franck Lagorce, who went on to start two F1 grands prix with Ligier] had started in Formula Renault and we started together like this, with me as an engineer. I was doing data acquisition - it was a big box for just two channels! This was about 1990.

F1R: Was there a particular moment that convinced you that you weren't going to make it as a driver? Frank Williams said it was when he put an Austin A35 on its roof at Mallory Park...

FV: No, when you're struggling to be P5 or P10 in Cadet karts and everybody around you is dreaming of F1, you have to be realistic that you're not going to be the guy at the top.

The experience in Formula Renault convinced me I wanted to be part of the circus because the first year, with Franck, we were P2 in the French championship. That was a good initial boost for me.

F1R: So, during that time you were studying at ESTACA [a French engineering school] - and then you started up an engine-preparation business before you went into Formula Renault. As we say in the UK, you had your fingers in a lot of pies at that time...

FV: Yes! [laughs] I was still at engineering school in '93 - something like this - when we launched RPM, preparing the F3 engine. This was with Marc Borgetto - he had a road accident and he's in a wheelchair now - and I had the [Formula Renault] chassis side at the other end.

OK, it was a bit hard because I had to manage the studying and the companies, but it gives you a very open view on the different businesses and skills. So today I can speak about engines, chassis and aero, even if I'm not at the level of my guys - I have a clear picture and I think that's helpful.

F1R: How did you get to meet the right people to make this all happen for you?

FV: Honestly, a couple of months ago I had a lunch with Christian Contzen [head of Renault Sport from 1991-2002] and he asked me more or less the same question: "What was the first step for you?" I said, "The first one was to meet you, Christian!"

I was still a student when he gave us the project with the F3 engine. It was... not ambitious, it was a bit crazy. This was very important for me. Then Petrofina, the first sponsor that I had [with ASM] in '98, when we won the French championship with Saelens.

Mercedes was also important - and I think the merging of the French and German F3 championships, because it gave us the push we needed to think big. The French F3 scene had been quite small in comparison. After that, it's been a case of meeting the right drivers.

F1R: How much of it has been a matter of luck - or do you make your own luck?

FV: Part of it, but... the first star we had was Lewis. Until then it had been a matter of taking things step by step. Jamie Green was the first British driver we had but he was independent, with a manager. Because Lewis was part of McLaren [in its driver-development programme] that changed the entire situation of my team. It was an important step for sure.

F1R: How big a step was GP2? You'd never done F3000 [which GP2 replaced as F1's main feeder formula]. Did you feel at a disadvantage coming in without experience at that level? Or did the new formula mean everyone started from a blank sheet?

FV: I'd looked at F3000 for a couple of years because we'd been successful in F3 - we'd won the French championship in 2002, Macau, the Korean Superprix, and for sure when you're winning at one stage you want to go on to the next. But I'd started with no resources - and I mean zero, we were sleeping in the race trucks! F3000 was too expensive.

Then I met Nicolas [Todt]. He was already involved in driver management - he was linked with [Felipe] Massa at this stage - and he wanted to develop this other side of the business, being part of a team. It was a very clever approach. He found some sponsors, and we could make the GP2 team [ART Grand Prix] happen. Without Nicolas, for sure it would have been another story, we wouldn't have been able to develop ART.

You mentioned luck, and here we had a... correspondence of timing, because I was dominating the F3 Euro Series just when GP2 arrived, and it was much easier to convince Nico Rosberg, for example, to join ART in a new championship, with a new car, a new engine, a new promoter. If it had still been F3000 he would have committed with Super Nova or Arden, because it makes sense in a championship with stability for a driver to go to the winner. In a new championship, they can take some risks. We were a bit lucky at this stage.

We won with Nico in '05, Lewis in '06, then we had Lucas di Grassi [second in 2007], then Romain Grosjean... this was more difficult [he was fourth in '08]. And in '09 we won again with Nico Hülkenberg.

F1R: Was that after he won A1GP?

FV: Yes. We did a stint in that - we won the first race, with Nelson Piquet, running Team Brazil.

F1R: Fingers in pies...

FV: Too many pies! But just 10 fingers, huh? [laughs] It's quite difficult, but when you're a team at this level, and you want to develop the business, you can't do just one series. I think we were one of the first to be involved in many different projects, but I think it's the right approach and now many teams are doing the same thing. On the financial side, it's easier to split the overhead costs, and it's also better for attracting drivers - being successful in GP2 made us attractive in F3, and in that championship we could detect the best drivers, develop the relationship with them, and make the best selection for GP2.

F1R: Has that gone a bit too far now? Until last year Prema and Van Amersfoort seemed to have about six drivers each in F3.

FV: Half the grid, no? [laughs] I don't want to have six drivers per team. At the end of the day what's important is to develop a personal relationship with the drivers, and I think that was the key to our success.

That and having good engineers. Obviously not the first one - that was me! - but later we had great engineers.

One of the big assets of the company was that we invested a lot in the people, we kept the same people for many years. There are people at ART now who started with me in the 1990s. I see it the same way with Alfa Romeo now in F1, that the biggest assets of a team are its people.

F1R: You were headhunted by Renault when it came back to Formula 1 as a manufacturer team at the end of 2015. How did that come about?

FV: I had the first contact two or three years before. Two or three times I was not too far from going there - one time in Enstone, another time in Viry-Chatillon.

It never happened because I was not also... extremely motivated [chuckles]. I had the feeling... that it was not the end of my ART story. Then Cyril [Abiteboul] came to me at the beginning of '15 and by then it was different with ART.

I had Seb [Sebastien Philippe] working with me and we won with Stoffel Vandoorne that year. I was confident ART was in a good place so it was easier for me to think about something else.

With Cyril the collaboration was there and it was working well, and we started like this... [he trails off into silence, looks meaningfully at F1 Racing, then hoots with laughter]

F1R: It's a shame our photographer has toddled off because the expression on your face would make a great picture. Why did the relationship with Renault end so quickly? Was it because the purchase happened so late in the day that it locked you into competing with the previous year's car?

FV: No, this is more for the sporting side. If it didn't turn very well for me and Renault together, I have to assume part of the responsibility.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough about my expectations beforehand, and the organisation was a bit too complicated and it didn't fit.

I'm very happy today because we were able with Cyril to rebuild the relationship and we have a good one together. At the time it didn't work. It was a good exercise for me to understand afterwards why it failed, what I did wrong.

F1R: How much of it was down to Enstone being very long-established as a team and having set ways of doing things?

FV: No, I think between the team and me it was OK.

F1R: So the problem was further north in the organisation?

FV: [gently but firmly] Don't push on this!

F1R: Fair enough. How did the move to Sauber come about?

FV: I stopped with Renault just after Christmas [2016] and it was a tough period for me because for sure it had not been a success. I decided to have a break. But after about three months my wife said, "Now you have to find something else to do." [laughs] I didn't want to go back to ART because it wouldn't have been fair on Seb, who was in charge and doing very well. And I still had Spark [the constructor of chassis for Formula E] and so on.

When they [the Sauber investors] came to me, in May or some time like this, I wasn't convinced about going back to F1. There was a lot to discuss. [laughs] But I understood that 
I would be much more in the free-hand situation.

I was more of an advisor at first. They asked me about the [Honda] engine deal. I said that it wasn't just an engine deal - who would provide the gearbox?

Step by step they convinced me they were ready for someone to have the keys to the factory, that we could have an approach that was closer to my previous life. Then I jumped in that July.

I stopped the Honda deal. Nothing against Honda - we have a good relationship, and things could have been different if we were where we are now, but back then we were four or five seconds off the pace.

To start with the Honda engine, which wasn't the most powerful or reliable on the grid, at this time would have been a big error, and the gearbox would
 have been an issue. We had to focus on the car. That's why I pushed for Ferrari.

Monday I was with Honda, stopping the deal, Tuesday I was at the Strategy Group and that's where I spoke to Sergio [Marchionne]. This was also a key moment of my life.

I went up to him and said, "Mr Marchionne..." He said, "Mr Marchionne is my father - I'm Sergio."

I told him I'd stopped with Honda and would like to talk to him. He said, "OK - you're more than welcome." We had a 15-minute discussion, I told him about the project and the investors, and we found a deal very quickly.

F1R: Bringing the Alfa Romeo name back to F1 was huge, and much bigger than an engine deal. Was that his idea or yours?

FV: I can't remember how we started to discuss the potential collaboration with Alfa Romeo, but it went seriously on the table the Tuesday after Monza. It was ambitious from Sergio, because we were so far off the pace. For all of us it was a huge push, that confidence in our people.

But I remember my first visit to Hinwil, around June. I didn't go through all the departments because I didn't want to show my face everywhere.

But I thought, "What the fuck - with this windtunnel, how can they be in this situation?"

The potential, with the infrastructure, was huge. But they had been struggling like hell on the financial side before the new investors came in. When I joined, we were 280 people.

F1R: Wow! Even when Enstone was on the skids in the Lotus era there were 460 people there.

FV: Yes, it was tough. Now we're back up to 450 but we're still one of the smallest teams. I don't want to say it went well from the beginning - the step was too big and it's hard to recruit people in F1 because of gardening leave and so on. I would say that from mid-season last year we really started to improve.

F1R: Now, you're a very competitive person and you want to win - but will Alfa Romeo ever be allowed to beat Ferrari?

FV: We've never had this discussion - and in Germany on the grid we were in front of them. And I didn't ask permission!