Team stability a ‘big advantage’ for Ericsson at Sauber

X (Twitter)X (Twitter)
FacebookFacebook
WhatsappWhatsapp

Marcus Ericsson is confident that returning for a second campaign at Sauber in 2016 will prove to be a “big advantage”, with the Swede also ramping up physical preparations over the winter.

Ericsson made his F1 debut with the now defunct Caterham team in 2014 before finding refuge at the Swiss outfit the following year.

Having been eclipsed by rookie team-mate Felipe Nasr over the opening races, the 25-year-old then picked up the pace to deliver stronger performances and was confirmed for 2016 last summer.

“It’s been great to stay with the team because obviously in motorsport many times you change teams between seasons and the first part of the year is quite tough because you get to know a lot of people and understand how they work,” Ericsson told F1i.

“So for me to stay with the team and my engineers is a big advantage I think because I know them and they know me. That’s been good and I think it will pay off. As for me, I have been working really hard over the winter on the physical side to be stronger and better prepared than ever.”

Sauber did not have its new 2016 car – the C35 – at this week’s first pre-season test in Barcelona, but Ericsson insists the opening group session was still useful for he and the team to practice ahead of the upcoming campaign.

“I have been trying and focus a bit on driving technique and as a team we are still able to do some tests that maybe last year we did not try so we can get some answers on that.

“We did some big setup work and the directions that we've found – even with the old car – maybe can fit right on the new car. If we have found something that really works well on the old car, maybe that will also work well on the new one. So even though it was not the new car it was still productive.”

Sauber will launch its new challenger at next week’s second test, which takes place at the Spanish Grand Prix venue from March 1-4.

Feature: The first test in numbers

GALLERY: Pre-season testing

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Julien Billiotte

Recent Posts

Domenicali meets Thai PM for street race plan in Bangkok

Formula 1’s global ambitions took another vibrant on Tuesday, as CEO Stefano Domenicali touched down…

11 hours ago

Alpine’s Oakes: ‘We’ve caused a lot of the noise around Doohan’

Alpine F1 team principal Oliver Oakes has acknowledged that much of the pre-season speculation surrounding…

12 hours ago

Wolff: Clear Mercedes has 'taken a step forward'

The 2025 Australian Grand Prix has come and gone, and for Mercedes team principal Toto…

13 hours ago

Alonso calls for redesign of Melbourne’s Turn 6 after costly crash

Fernando Alonso was hoping to kick off his 2025 F1 season with a productive weekend…

14 hours ago

Brundle: Hamilton's Ferrari debut ‘disappointing by any metric’

Sky F1’s Martin Brundle delivered a scathing assessment of Lewis Hamilton’s race debut with Ferrari,…

16 hours ago

A quiet man on the verge of F1 greatness

On this day in 1977, Carlos Pace was killed in a light aircraft accident near…

17 hours ago