Sports Cars
Peter Sauber began building sports cars in the 1970s. After using turbocharged Mercedes V8 engines in the 1980s, his team became the official factory team of Mercedes-Benz, reviving the Silver Arrow legend. They won the 24 hours of Le Mans and the World Sportscar Championship (1989 and 1990), competing against Jaguar and Porsche. Among others, drivers such as Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Michael Schumacher, Karl Wendlinger, Jochen Mass, Jean-Louis Schlesser and Mauro Baldi raced for Sauber.
Sauber participated in a number of other racing series before its involvement in Formula One, such as the Swiss and International Sports cars championships and the 24 hours of Le Mans. The first Sauber car, C1, was built in 1970. Sauber, in partnership with Mercedes, won the Le Mans 24 hour race in 1989 and the world sports car championship in 1989 and 1990 with the Sauber C9 and Mercedes-Benz C11 respectively.
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Famous quotes containing the words sports and/or cars:
“Guys do not have a genetic blueprint that allows them to understand or love sports.”
—Lesley Visser, U.S. sports reporter and announcer. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 82 (June 17, 1991)
“I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object.”
—Roland Barthes (1915–1980)