AUGUST 30, 1999

Salo and Diniz at Sauber

AS we exclusively predicted two weeks ago Mika Salo has been confirmed as Pedro Diniz's partner at Red Bull Sauber Petronas.

AS we exclusively predicted two weeks ago Mika Salo has been confirmed as Pedro Diniz's partner at RedÊBullÊSauberÊPetronas. The Finn signed a two-year deal with the Swiss team which is believed to be worth around $4m a year. Peter Sauber also confirmed that Diniz will be staying with the team.

While the supply of Sauber Petronas-badged Ferrari engines is already secured the team is still trying to find engineers to strengthen its technical team, following a difficult year during which the Sauber chassis has been a big disappointment. To date the team has not been able to lure any top engineers from England, despite the high salaries being offered.

There appears to be a battle going on at the moment for the control of the team between Peter Sauber - who controls the voting shares but owns only 24.5% of the team - and commercial director Fritz Kaiser, who also owns 24.5% . We have heard suggestions that Kaiser wants to buy out Peter Sauber or wants to sell his shares. The remaining 51% of the shares are owned by Kaiser's ally Dietrich Mateschitz of Red Bull. We believe that Kaiser and Mateschitz want control of the team so that they can sell it.