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Ericsson believes Sauber can lead midfield in 2019

Ericsson believes Sauber can lead midfield in 2019

18-08-2018 15:30

Sauber have had a fairly encouraging season compared to what was expected from them, scoring 18 points so far, 13 more than the paltry tally of five that they racked up last season.

Marcus Ericsson didn’t score a single point last season, with Pascal Wehrlein getting all five of Sauber’s points, but the Swede has improved this year, and believes Sauber can kick on for next season.

Last year was Sauber’s worst ever in F1, but this year with up to date Ferrari engines and the talented Charles Leclerc, both giving the team the boost they needed to re-join the midfield battle.

Ericsson believes that the team has potential to return to the level they were at in 2012, when Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi scored four podiums between them as Sauber finished with 126 points.

Ericsson told Crash.net: “I think the potential in this team is massive.

“If you go to the factory the facilities are great and the wind tunnel is great. If we are able to continue like this, we should be able to get back to that [2012] level.

“It’s just a different thing altogether to go to the race weekends compared to the last few seasons because the last two seasons I knew we needed a big crash, we needed the weather to turnaround completely.

“We needed so many outside things to happen to be able to have a chance to score and that’s a very sad way to go into a race weekend. You could only compete with your teammate really so that was mentally tough.

“Now we go into a race weekend knowing that if we do everything right we will be there and fight for points on a Sunday.

“If we mess it up and we don’t do a good weekend then we will be at the back probably.

“But we are in that mix and it’s such a nice feeling and it is so motivating as well for me and for the team to know that going into every weekend. Also you can see back in the factory as well how much people are motivated and happy to be back fighting.”