Alfa Romeo seek to step up in final F1 season with Sauber

Alfa Romeo unveiled a new red and black livery on Tuesday for their final Formula One season as title sponsors of Swiss-based Sauber, with the team setting their sights on moving up from sixth overall.

The team, who will become the Audi factory outfit from 2026, have an unchanged lineup in China's Guanyu Zhou and experienced Finn Valtteri Bottas but new management after the departure of Fred Vasseur to Ferrari.

Andreas Seidl has moved from McLaren to become CEO of the Sauber Group while Italian Alessandro Alunni Bravi has been appointed representative rather than the formal title of principal.

Technical director Jan Monchaux said the new car, which will make its track debut for a filming day in Barcelona on Friday before pre-season testing in Bahrain, was an evolution of the 2022 version with an emphasis on improved reliability.

"We concentrated mainly on the rear part of the car," he explained at a livery launch in Zurich, describing the C43 as mean and "sexy" in its new livery.

"We just wanted to be brave enough to do the next step in terms of pure development on the rear end which opened the door to a lot of other solutions we couldn't implement last year."

Monchaux said there was a new rear suspension and gearbox while the cooling layout had been changed and the bodywork revised.

"Our hopes are high that we can continue where we ended up (last season) and fight for those high positions in the midfield," he added.

He expected the "porpoising" phenomenon that dominated discussion early last season to no longer be an issue thanks to technical rule changes raising the side edges of the car's floor.

"We have only three days of winter testing and if we were caught in a similar situation to last year then it would be a nightmare,"