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Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN was officially founded in 2018 when Alfa Romeo became the title sponsor of the Sauber Formula One team, with a multi-year technical and commercial partnership agreement. In 2019, the team name Sauber was changed to Alfa Romeo Racing, although the team headquarters remains in Switzerland and the team remained largely unchanged. This came as the Alfa Romeo took over the Sauber team, although ownership and management structure remained unchanged.
The name Alfa Romeo has connections to Formula 1 dating back to the championship's inception in 1950. The newest incarnation of the Alfa Romeo team is paired with the Swiss Sauber team. Previous to the change to Alfa Romeo Racing, the Sauber team had a history that included the introduction into Formula 1 in 1993, when the team established itself and even became race winners under BMW's brief ownership, while developing a reputation for producing competitive cars and developing young drivers.
In the 2018 season, and the first season with the Alfa Romeo as the title sponsor, Team Principal Fred Vasseur steered the team to a rapid upward path. The Ferrari-powered C37 proved competitive, especially in the hands of rookie driver Charles Leclerc, who scored thirty-nine of the teams forty-eight points.
This was the first season that Alfa Romeo returned as a full constructor, rather than just a title sponsor. The team signed 2007 World Champion Kimi Raikkonen alongside Antonio Giovinazzi, who was competing in his first full season. The team retained the Ferrari power unit and maintained the Sauber car naming convention, with the 2019 car designated the C38. The season started well, with Raikkonen proving the car's competitiveness and scoring consistent points. Giovinazzi took a while longer to get the car underneath him, only matching the perfomances of Raikkonen halfway through the season.
Alfa Romeo came into the 2020 season with the same driver lineup of the previous season and brought on Polish company ORLEN as title sponsor, officially changing the name of the team to Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN. This season was far more difficult for the team, being mired at the back of the grid after new regulations cut the performance of the Ferrari power-unit in the car. Although the team still outperformed fellow Ferrari-powered Haas and Mercedes-powered Williams. By the end of the season, the team finished eight in the constructor's championship, the same place in the previous season.
The 2021 season continued the downward momentum of the 2020 season, with both drivers being mired towards the back of the grid. Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN had maintained the driver lineup from the previous two seasons, and had an otherwise unremarkable season, falling from the fifty-seven constructor points scored in 2019, to only score thirteen points. This was further complicated by the increased performance of the Williams team, which passed Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN in the constructor standings, leaving them second-last to only the Haas F1 Team who failed to score points in the 2021 season.
Following the 2021 season and the teams lackluster results, Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN changed their driver lineup. They signed departing Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas, and, alongside Bottas the team hired rookie driver Guanyu Zhou for the 2022 season. Previous to the season, Zhou raced in the Formula 2 championship, where he placed second. The twenty-one-year-old Chinese driver has been a part of Alpine's Driver Academy since 2019, and will be the first Chinese driver in F1.