Sauber aim for boost from unpredictable Brazil

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The Sauber team is urgently seeking points from the final two races of the 2017 season. And drivers Marcus Ericsson and Pascal Wehrlein believe that Brazil might be their best opportunity.

"The unpredictable weather in Interlagos adds some excitement to the weekend. You never know what to expect," said Wehrlein, who has scored all five of the team's points so far this season.

"As a team, we have made some progress over the past two race weekends, so I am heading to São Paolo with a positive feeling.

"I look forward to being back in the car and to continuing to work in the right direction," he added. "We always get a warm welcome from the fans and the atmosphere at the track is great."

Wehrlein finished in 14th place in the last race in Mexico. His team mate had run as high as eighth before an engine failure saw him make an early exit from the proceedings.

Even so, the Swede was hopeful that things were looking up heading to the penultimate race of the season.

"During the last race in Mexico I was able to fight my way into the midfield," he pointed out. "Which was a progress compared to the previous GP weekends.

"Therefore, I am optimistic that we will be building on that and making further improvements."

Both drivers have opted to take nine sets of supersofts to Brazil. They also have three sets of soft tyres, and just one mandatory set of medium compound rubber.

Ericsson missed taking part in Free Practice 1 in Mexico so that the team could give development driver Charles Leclerc time in the car.

This weekend it will be Wehrlein who misses out on FP1 in favour of the Formula 2 champion, who is a member of the Ferrari Driver Academy..

The 20-year old Monegasque driver is strongly tipped to land a full-time race seat at the Swiss team in 2018. That would mean either Ericsson or Wehrlein missing out on a drive next season.

It's even possible that both drivers may be dropped. Sauber is under pressure to take on a second Ferrari protege, Antonio Giovinazzi.

The young Italian has already made his Formula 1 race début, sitting in for an injured Wehrlein at the start of the season.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.