The C37 chassis was designed by a team led by Jörg Zander alongside Luca Furbatto, Ian Wright, and Nicolas Hennel. The car incorporated the halo cockpit-protection device mandated for all Formula One cars from 2018.
A significant change from the previous season concerned the power unit. Sauber had originally intended to use an engine supplied by Honda, but a reorganisation of the team's management structure caused that agreement to collapse. After running year-old Ferrari engines in 2017, Sauber renegotiated with Ferrari and secured current-specification 2018-spec units. That deal was made possible through a new commercial relationship with Alfa Romeo, the Italian brand that co-owns heritage ties with Ferrari and whose logo would soon dominate the car's livery.
The Alfa Romeo sponsorship agreement brought a dramatic visual transformation. The C37 abandoned the light blue that had characterised Sauber cars for many years and adopted a predominantly white base with a large racing-red section covering the upper two-thirds of the engine cover and surrounding the air intake. Two thin blue stripes of unequal width — the lower stripe slightly wider than the upper — ran from the nose cone along the full length of the sidepods to the rear suspension attachments. The fin, floor, and front and rear wings were finished in black, except for the outer faces of the end plates. The upper flap of the DRS rear wing was white; the lower flap was red and carried the words "Alfa Romeo" in italics. A simplified version of the Alfa Romeo logo featured prominently on the engine cover, and the Quadrifoglio Verde cloverleaf badge appeared on the side of the air intake. The arrangement led various commentators, particularly in Italian media, to informally — though improperly — call the car the "Alfa Sauber."
The C37 made its competitive debut at the 2018 Australian Grand Prix. Over the full season, Leclerc proved the faster of the two drivers and delivered the team's standout result: sixth place at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku, the C37's best finish of the year. Sauber closed the Constructors' Championship in eighth position with 48 points, a substantial improvement on their previous campaigns.
The C37 occupies a transitional position in the team's history. It represented the first flowering of the Alfa Romeo partnership that would define the outfit for years, yet was built and raced by what remained structurally the same Swiss team that had competed as Sauber since 1993. When the rebranding to Alfa Romeo Racing took effect for 2019, the C37 became — temporarily — the final car to have carried the Sauber name in Formula One, a distinction that was only altered when the team reverted to the Sauber name for the 2024 season in preparation for a full Audi works entry.
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