The C30 chassis was designed by James Key, Christoph Zimmermann, Pierre Waché, and Seamus Mullarkey. As with the C29, it ran on customer Ferrari V8 power, but the updated partnership gave Sauber access to the Ferrari KERS unit for the first time, aligning the team's energy deployment capability with the leading Ferrari-powered runners. Kamui Kobayashi completed the first shakedown of the new car at Valencia the day after its launch.
Drivers for 2011 were Kobayashi, retained from the previous season, and Sergio Pérez, a Mexican newcomer who joined Sauber for his first full Formula One campaign.
The C30 demonstrated a marked improvement in reliability over the C29, scoring points consistently from the opening round in Melbourne. In Australia, both Pérez and Kobayashi initially finished in the points — seventh and eighth respectively — but both cars were subsequently disqualified for a non-regulation rear wing, wiping the results.
Kobayashi was particularly effective in the first half of the season, reaching the top ten in the opening seven races and amassing 25 points in that span. His results included a fifth place at Monaco and a seventh in Canada after running second at the restart. Pérez made his first points score in Spain with ninth place before a heavy crash in qualifying at Monaco left him injured, forcing him to miss Monaco and Canada. Former Sauber driver Pedro de la Rosa substituted in Canada, finishing twelfth.
The second half of the season proved more difficult for Kobayashi, who had only one further points finish — in Germany — through the middle stretch of the calendar. Pérez meanwhile delivered his best result of the year with seventh place in Britain. A potential double-points finish at Monza was erased when both cars retired with gearbox failures, allowing Force India to move ahead in the Constructors' Championship standings.
Pérez returned to the points in Singapore, and Kobayashi delivered a strong Japanese Grand Prix, qualifying seventh — his career-best grid position to that point — and finishing respectably in front of the home crowd. Both drivers contributed to a points finish in Abu Dhabi and Brazil to close the season. In total, the C30 accumulated 44 points, matching exactly the C29's final tally from 2010, though the campaign was considered more competitive overall given the earlier and more consistent scoring.
After the near-blank livery of 2010, the C30 carried a more developed commercial look for 2011. The team secured Mexican-linked backing brought largely by the arrival of Pérez, including investment from Telmex owner Carlos Slim and sponsorship from Claro and Telcel. Mad Croc Energy, which had joined the C29 mid-season, returned. In Australia, the team displayed Swiss and Japanese national flags on the engine cover in tribute to the victims of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami; the same tribute reappeared at the Japanese Grand Prix.
The C30 chassis acquired a notable afterlife through the Heritage F1 programme. The British motorsport engineering company TDF constructed the Heritage F1 HF1-018, based on the C30's chassis, front suspension, and aerodynamic devices but powered by a small-capacity turbocharged engine. Marketed as the fastest track-day car in the world, the HF1-018 debuted at Circuit Zolder in May 2018 as part of a FORCE F1 demonstration. It subsequently appeared in television and press campaigns and at the 2018 Silverstone Classic, driven by Oliver Webb and Jessica Hawkins. In June 2018, Billy Monger drove the specially adapted HF1-018 — fitted with hand controls matching his Carlin BRDC British Formula 3 car — at Rockingham Motor Speedway, marking his first time in a Formula One-derived car. The session was documented in a feature broadcast during Sky F1's coverage of the 2018 Austrian Grand Prix. In 2019, Hawkins drove a special 1000th-race livery version of the HF1-018 at the Shanghai Festival during the Chinese Grand Prix weekend.