Stake F1 team (formerly Alfa Romeo) has had difficulties over the past couple of seasons. They finished 9th in the Constructors’ Championship last year and 6th the previous year.
With their rebrand this year, and the news of an Audi takeover in 2026, their goal for this season is to make improvements to become an upper midfield team and avoid finishing last.
At the season opening in Bahrain, their qualifying pace was not showing any improvements from the previous season. They did not make it past Q1 and the Stake drivers were in P16 and P17 on Bahrain’s starting grid. Morale was low in the team.
However, an amazing performance from Zhou Guanyu (finishing P11) brought hope to the team to see their car fighting for the midfield. Valtteri Bottas’ race was not as fortunate. He lost three places from his original starting position because of a pitstop issue. There was a cross-threading issue with the wheel nut, which caused Bottas to lose 50 seconds.
Skipping forward to Saudi Arabia, Zhou crashed in FP3. Despite the team working overtime, the car was unable to set a lap time, meaning that Zhou had to start from P20. In a repeat of the previous race weekend, Bottas did not make it out of Q1, qualifying in P16.
There was plenty of chaos at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Pierre Gasly did not make it through the formation lap and Lance Stroll crashed during the race. This meant that Zhou had automatically gained two places. Despite the fight from both drivers, it was not enough to reach the points – they finished in P17 and P18. Zhou was showing promising results and reached P11, however, during his final pitstop the curse of Stake’s slow wheel changes continued, putting him back into last position.
As the Australian Grand Prix rolled around, the team changed their name to Kick Sauber due to the illegality of gambling in Australia. Zhou had a custom helmet for this race, with his teammate’s face on the back. And Bottas, as an honourary Aussie, made his debut in an Uber commercial.
For the first time this season, one of the Stake Sauber drivers made it into Q2. Bottas qualified in P13 in Australia but, unfortunately, Zhou qualified last in P19 (as Sargeant was not racing). With three DNFs – Verstappen, Hamilton, and Russell – and overtaking an Alpine, Zhou reached P15 in the race, with Bottas ahead of him in P14. Despite seeing better results than the previous two races, the team still faced issues with their pitstops. Both drivers had issues with the wheel nuts.
Separate from the racing, with both of their drivers’ contracts running out at the end of this year, there has been rumours spreading about the team looking for replacement drivers. But, the real question is whether they are looking to change the wrong thing within the team. Because, with the drivers improving each race so far, the main issue that the team are still facing is the difficulty with their machinery during pitstops, causing major delays for the drivers.
Written by Chloe.
Featured Image Credit: @stakef1team on Instagram
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