BMW announced on 22 June 2005 that it would acquire a majority stake in Sauber and enter Formula 1 with its own works-managed team from 2006. The decision changed the shape of two teams at once: Sauber gained manufacturer backing, while Williams lost the BMW works route.
From engine partner to team owner
BMW had returned to Formula 1 as Williams’s engine partner in 2000. The partnership produced wins and title challenges, especially with Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya, but it never became a championship-winning alliance. By 2005, the relationship had cooled enough for BMW to seek more control over its Formula 1 future.
Sauber offered a different route. The Swiss team had a modern wind tunnel, a disciplined technical culture and a base at Hinwil that could be expanded. It did not have Williams’s trophy cabinet, but it gave BMW ownership influence rather than supplier status.
Hinwil becomes a manufacturer project
The BMW Sauber team debuted in 2006 and quickly became competitive in the upper midfield. Its peak came in 2008, when Robert Kubica won the Canadian Grand Prix and the team briefly sat inside the championship fight. BMW’s F1 ownership period did not last long, but it gave Sauber its strongest modern results before the team later moved through further identity changes.
The 22 June announcement is therefore a clear business and team-history milestone. It shows a manufacturer deciding that supplying engines was not enough, a private team becoming a factory programme and Williams entering another stage of its long search for the right works partnership.
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