F1: No Brawn style rescue for BMW, says Sauber

Sauber ran his team, in later years with huge financial support from Petronas in Malaysia, partly in return for providing Malaysians with the opportunity to work in an F1 team, from 1994. In 2006, he sold 80% of it to BMW who renamed the team, promoted various sponsors such as Intel and T Mobile - and set its agenda for the team.

Sauber's description of himself missed out "bitter." He told Autosport "the negotiations with BMW have failed because their demands were simply too high for me. Consequently I have been unable to sign the Concorde agreement which guarantees payments worth millions [over the next three years] and would have secured the future of the team."

The Concorde Agreement is the basis of entry to F1 and assigns the share of revenues. Other teams can join the sport, but won't be entitled to all of those benefits. For any resurgent Sauber team to join in, other teams will have to agree to dilute their share.

Whether they are prepared to do that will depend on many things: first whether the fight between FOTA and the FIA can be resolved. The Concorde Agreement does not guarantee that.

Rumours that Nelson Piquet may be interested in taking over the team - possibly with his former arch-rival Niki Lauder - were given a boost when the two were discovered deep in conversation in the paddock at the Hungaroing recently. But it is equally likely that Piquet's presence was a last-ditch attempt to keep his son in his seat at Renault - an attempt which failed.

If anyone does agree to pick up BMW Sauber, they will have to haggle hard over just what they get for BMW built one of the most advanced wind tunnels in the sport when it took over the team: whether that goes with the team is a double-edged sword: it's incredibly expensive to maintain but aero-development without one is next to impossible; yet there are suggestions that wind-tunnel testing be reduced to save costs. BMW the company, however, might consider that it's a useful tool for its own product development.

Force India is desperate for a new wind tunnel but the costs are making even their owner, Vijay Mallya, think twice. Its current tunnel is not full scale despite an upgrade in 2008.

Clearly, BMW is not going to do a Honda-style deal of selling the entire team for a nominal sum - and handing over running costs for a year without even a sponsorship deal.

Next year, if Sauber does turn up, it will not be doing so with the advantage of abandoning this year's car and working for the second half of the season on next year's, unless a takeover happens very soon. For BMW has already hinted that it plans to cut back on the F1 workforce - and the obvious place to do that is on development of next year's car.