BMW Sauber Withdraws From Formula One Looking For A Buyer

BMW Sauber announced recently that they are withdrawing from Formula ONE racing when this year's season ends. This adds BMW to the list of teams pulling out in 2009, after Honda withdrew in December. This decision comes just ahead of the signing of a new Concord Agreement, the contract that binds the team to the sport for the contract period. Chairman for BMW's management board Dr. Norbert Reithofer, called the decision difficult, but a step towards their company's strategic realignment and said that the Premium would be more difficult to define in terms of the sustainability and environmental compatibility.

Bernie Ecclestone however has a different approach. He believes that the fact that BMW failed to challenge for this year's world title is the reason for their withdrawal. He said that upon speaking to Mario Theissen, the team manager for BMW Sauber, he said that they had three years to take home the world title. Ecclestone told the BBC that that's what BMW wanted to do, and that it looked quite good for them to be able to, but apparantly it didn't turn out that why and he postulates that may be why the team is pulling out of Formula 1 altogether.

This year BMW drivers Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld have only taken eight points between them, and that puts BMW in eighth place in the constructor's championship. BMW has been an innovator in F1 since taking over the Sauber team in the beginning of 2006, taking home two podiums and taking fifth in the constructor that season. But this year, they don't seem to be able to replicate the results, possibly because of the new regulations that were instroduced. One of the members of BMW Sauber's management board, Dr. Klaus Draeger, confirmed the results did indeed play a part in BMW's decision to pull out of the racing world.