Swede now aiming to rebound from costly Malaysia GP spin in China
Tuesday 21 April 2015 15:16, UK
Marcus Ericsson believes Sauber have the pace to target points at every grand prix in 2015 following their big step forward over the winter.
On the back of the first scoreless season in their two-decade history, and a build up to the first race of this year completely overshadowed by Giedo van der Garde’s legal action against them, Sauber have proved one of the campaign's early surprise packages. A bumper 14-point in Australia was followed by a further Q3 appearance for Ericsson in Malaysia, and although the team didn’t ultimately score at the second round, they remain fourth in the Constructors’ Championship.
The improvements made by engine suppliers Ferrari appear to have been a central factor behind Sauber’s renaissance and Ericsson reckons that on current form the C34 is capable of competing for the top-10 points positions at every race weekend.
“No specific targets for championship position, but it’s a target for every race weekend now to score points,” he said in China on Thursday.
“It’s a realistic target with the pace we have at the moment. So we need to try and score the points and keep up with the development of the car.”
Overshadowed by team-mate Felipe Nasr in Melbourne, Ericsson was the lead Sauber runner in Malaysia and achieved his first ever Q3 berth in the rain-hit qualifying session. However, the Swede then blew his chances of a second consecutive points finish by spinning out early in the race.
Having run at the back of the grid throughout his debut F1 campaign, the 24-year-old says he is still on a learning curve and is looking forward to getting back in the C34 this weekend in Shanghai.
“It’s a big step coming from Caterham into the Sauber team,” Ericsson admitted. “We have been competitive from the start and Australia was great for us with both cars in the points. Malaysia was also a really good weekend – I was top 10 in every session and managed to get to Q3.
“It was a great weekend and then I did my mistake in the race which I paid a big price for. But that’s something you learn from and I’m not the first one or the last one who makes a mistake in a race.
“Overall the Malaysia weekend was very positive. We brought a lot of good stuff from that and showed again that we can be competitive. We are going to aim to continue that form here in China and it’s realistic that we can do. I’m really looking forward to getting going.”
