Nico Hulkenberg is set to leave Haas at the end of the 2024 season, with Sauber securing his services for 2025 onwards.
Hulkenberg joined Haas in 2023 after a three-year absence from full-time F1 racing. The lure of Audi’s involvement led him to make the move to Sauber for the upcoming season.
Haas Team Principal Ayao Komatsu thanked Hulkenberg for his contributions, acknowledging him as a valuable team player.
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Audi is taking full control of Sauber and developing an F1 engine for the first time ahead of a full-scale manufacturer entry for the new 2026 rules.
Though the team will not be known as Audi before then, partly because it needs to see out its customer Ferrari engine deal in 2025, Audi is keen to have its own drivers installed next year – with current Sauber pair Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu likely to make way.
Audi has been courting Carlos Sainz for a long time and its chances of tempting the three-time grand prix winner to the project seemed to be boosted massively when Ferrari announced it would drop Sainz at the end of 2024 to make room for Lewis Hamilton.
But with Sainz waiting to see if any seats at proven top teams, primarily Red Bull, open up for 2025, Audi cannot yet secure its top target.
In the meantime it has looked to lock down at least one driver, with Hulkenberg another to have been coveted for quite some time.
Sauber CEO Andreas Seidl, who will head up Audi’s F1 team from 2026, had already tried to recruit Hulkenberg for 2024 but Hulkenberg’s Haas contract stood in the way.
No such obstacle exists for 2025 so Sauber/Audi moved early to tie Hulkenberg down, as he was known to be of interest to other teams including Williams and Alpine.
Haas announced on Friday morning that Hulkenberg will leave the team at the end of 2024, with confirmation of his Audi deal following soon after.
He has signed what has been described as a “multi-year contract” starting in 2025 and will be “closely involved” in the development of the first Audi F1 car.
The move will also mark his return to a team he drove for in 2013 when he finished 10th in the drivers’ championship.
It marks a return to a works team for Hulkenberg for the first time since he was dropped by Renault at the end of 2019.
That left Hulkenberg out of a full-time F1 drive for three seasons, although he did make some impressive stand-in performances for Racing Point/Aston Martin in that time, before unexpectedly making his way back onto the grid with Haas in 2023.
