On the Thursday of the Hungarian Grand Prix, Sauber announced that race drivers, Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson were to be kept on at the team for the 2016 season.

Team principal Monisha Kaltenborn was quoted as saying that the team have “full confidence in the skills of Marcus and Felipe” and “that the team are heading in the right direction” after a pointless 2014 campaign. Before the ninth round of the Formula One championship the duo have accumulated 21 points, with Brazil’s Nasr picking up 16, with a best finish of fifth in Australia and Sweden’s Ericsson five points, with a best finish of eighth, also in Australia.

Looking forward

Shortly after the news was made public, rookie Nasr, revealed that he was “looking forward to the second half of the season and helping with car development” whilst his teammate  Ericsson, in his second season of F1, added his thoughts by saying he felt he was “being appreciated as a valuable driver” and “will continue to try and succeed.” After a good start to the season the Hinwil based outfit have struggled of late with their last points being courtesy of Nasr in Monaco. This could be in part to the team still running the poor Ferrari 2014 Power Unit and not expecting to receive the upgraded 2015 unit until sometime in the second half of the championship. It also must be said that the Swiss team do generally perform in the latter half of the season- 2013 being the best example.

Provided that the team avoid another debacle that occurred in Australia, where 2014 test driver Giedo van der Garde took the team to court saying that he had a valid contract to race in 2015, 2016 will mark the first time that Sauber have retained a driver pairing since 2011-2012, where Kamui Kobayashi and Sergio Perez raced for the outfit. In that time the team have had Nico Hulkenberg, Esteban Gutierrez, and Adrian Sutil as drivers in different combinations.   

Future

Nasr and Ericsson bring substantial sponsorship to the team and recently announced that Mark Smith would be joining them in a technical role, having previously worked with Ericsson at Caterham. After a troubled last 12 months, including severe financial issues, and unwanted publicity, it does seem that Sauber are a team recovering.

VAVEL Logo
About the author