Welcome to Sauber Petronas Racing's team HQ where you can find everything to do with the new Swiss-Malaysian outfit fronted by their Sammarinese Director Sportive Chris Robinson.
Congratulations on your acceptance to the Man Game.
I'm going to take the opposite point of view from what it seems everyone else's reaction has been and say I'm thrilled to have another Swiss team in the game! Its great to have more people to develop the Swiss talents, because I can't do it on my own. I'd love to work with you, maybe we can both help each other out in the future!
Bushwackers wrote:
Congratulations on your acceptance to the Man Game.
I'm going to take the opposite point of view from what it seems everyone else's reaction has been and say I'm thrilled to have another Swiss team in the game! Its great to have more people to develop the Swiss talents, because I can't do it on my own. I'd love to work with you, maybe we can both help each other out in the future!
thank you, and if it's beneficial to both parties then we can't see any reason why some sort of future arrangement can't be made between the 2 teams.
The team made the following Official Statement on Twitter:
Sauber Petronas Racing would like to take this time to confirm that they won't be applying for any HC races this season.
When interviewed live on SMTV the DS Chris Robinson had the following to say...
"After meeting with the team owner Peter Sauber and the sponsors' representatives we decided that we didn't want to risk taking on any of the HC races in our first year. For all involved with this project, it would be best for us going forward as the increased competition in these races really put us off and this seemed especially bad in the only races that would have interested us, The Tour of Beijing and the Japan Cup.
This decision is not one that is taken lightly as we know that these races will offer out the most points but we feel the level of competition in them with all the PCT teams taking part, and knowing that they will be sending their strongest squads to them to try and bag the big points we felt that we would be better off giving these a miss allowing us to target more races that we feel we will have a better chance of either winning or placing well in.
Also while I'm here I would like to give a World Exclusive and release the first of our 5 season Goals. To those who have been following me on twitter you might have already worked this one out as I hinted about it on the 10th of November and earlier in this Interview. Anyway getting to the point our first goal for the season is ...
*The screen the goes black before Mr. Robinson could finish his sentence.*
... Sorry people but the Live feed to Mr Robinson in their Malaysian HQ went down just before he could tell us, We'll try and get back in touch with him and hopefully we can bring you the news before the end of the day.Âť
We can now officially reveal that our first goal for the season will be to top 10 the Asia Tour.
"We feel that we could do really well in Asia and will be focussing on it for our first year in the peloton. With the amount of Asian teams this year we feel that it would be best to play a little safe and target a top 10, although we feel we could be very close to a top 5 if everything falls into place."
With the start of the transfer season we feel it's time to release the information on the second of our goals, to top 10 the team standings for this year.
Sauber Petronas can now reveal the names of their first 4 signings, all of which have a wage of €50,000
The First rider to sign for us was 20 year old Swiss rider Stefan Kung. Stefan is hotly tipped to be a star of the future and we are glad that he will be joining us for our first season and hope he will be able to help the team out wherever possible.
The Second signing is Dimitri Jiriakov. This 28 year old Liechtensteinian climber will serve as a useful domestique in the mountains.
Amir Mustafa Rusli is our Third signing and is another climbing domestique. This 26 year old Malaysian rider is eager to show us how good he is whenever the terrain gets difficult.
Our Fourth new rider is the Indonesian Sprinter Samai Samai. We will be looking for this 33 year old to either get some good results in bunch finishes or act as a super leadout man in some of the shorter races on the calendar.
Hopefully we will be able to announce some more new signings over the coming days.
Edited by sammyt93 on 11-11-2013 16:41
Today we've managed to complete the signings of 5 new riders.
The first of those is Ahmad Haidar Anuawar who has been brought in from Oz Cycling Project for a fee of €100,000. This 27 year old Malaysian Sprinter has been brought in with half an eye on completing the goal of winning the GP Tokyo. Ideally he would be used as a leadout man for a rider we are still trying to capture but even if we fail to make that signing we reckon he is strong enough to have a real tilt at the goal himself.
The second signing is of Austrian TimeTrialist Riccardo Zoidl. The 25 year old can also be employed as a breakaway rider or someone who can chase down breaks for our leaders.
The Third signing of the day is Mohammed Zamri Salleh this 30 year old Malaysian is hoping to contribute to the teams sprint train, especially in hilly races where his kick could be helpful in positioning our leader.
The Fourth of the Day's signings is my good friend Giacomo Scarponi. My fellow Sammarinese is a 25 year old Mountain domestique that loves to go on the attack and we could see him involved in quite a few breakaway's, showing off the team's kit to raise awareness for the team and it's sponsors. Apart from that his signing also pleases one of our sponsors, San Marino TV and we are hoping he will be able to challenge for national honours when the time is right.
The final signing was of Muhamad Adiq Othman. This 22 year old Puncher will be a good domestique in the Hilly races for our team and will be looking forward to developing his kick at the finish of races.
you can find their wages in the Team Roster Post.
Edited by sammyt93 on 11-11-2013 16:43
Today sees the signings of riders 10 and 11 for Sauber Petronas Racing and it is the first time we have been here to make an announcement without any Malaysian riders to show off. Anyway as stated we have 2 new men to show off, 1 of which is from Switzerland and the other is from Luxembourg and both have signed on a minimal 50k wage.
The first of these and the 10th man through the door this year is Kim Kirchen. The 35 year old Luxembourgian Hills specialist could well have found himself being the leading rider in his discipline at another CT team but he had so much faith in our project that he decided to sign for us despite our plans to use him more as a super domestique or co leader providing we land our other targets.
The second rider signed today is a total contrast to the experienced Kirchen, at just 21 years of age Gabriel Chavanne is definitely one for the future. The Swiss sprinter is also more than adept in prologues already and will be looking to develop his skills over the year whilst acting as part of our mini sprint train.
We don't expect to be able to announce anything else for the next few days regarding transfers as we are being forced into a more patient game when it comes to securing our Leaders.
Good luck in the new season!
