Sauber Drivers Insist Car Must Be Improved

Drivers Marcus Ericsson and Charles Leclerc admit their Sauber car isn’t reliable after troubled pre-season testing. 

They have both insisted that their team engineers must sort these issues out ahead of the Australian Grand Prix. 

Ericsson said: “There is a bit in it (both drivers spinning) because we had so many new things concept wise on our car this year. 

“The aero, mechanical, suspension, everything is different compared to last year’s car. 

“In testing that was a bit of a theme, that the car was a bit unbalanced and a bit unpredictable to drive, and that’s why we ended up in the gravel a few times. 

“But the main thing is we learned quite a lot about the car and these offs we also learn things.”

Both drivers caused red flags in pre-season and ended up in the gravel. 

The Swedish driver went on to say: “We played around quite a lot with the balance of the car, with the setup and it sort of caught us out a bit. 

“It shows that we still have some work to do to make the car a bit more stable in general, to make it a bit more predictable for us drivers and we hope that we learned from testing we can implement now and make stability a bit stronger here.” 

Leclerc, making his F1 debut in Melbourne this weekend added: “It probably came a little bit from me, I’m still not experienced in F1, I still have a lot of things to learn. 

“I will not give all the fault to the car. It comes also a little from myself, a little bit half-half. 

“I need to work on that, we need to work also on the car to make it better, to make it easier to drive. 

“It was definitely not easy in Barcelona but I think we have identified some issues and will come back stronger here with a better car and an easier car to drive.”