Marcus Ericsson believes Sauber is closer to scoring points now than it was earlier this season, even though races are running out to jump Manor in the constructors’ standings.
Sauber has yet to score a point this season, with development limited early on due to financial concerns. As a result, the team is currently 11th in the constructors’ championship, one place behind Manor due to Pascal Wehrlein’s tenth place in the Austrian Grand Prix.
Following the takeover of Sauber by Longbow Finance and subsequent development of the car later in the season, Ericsson believes the team is getting closer to the top ten even thought it only has four races left to try and score a point.
“Yeah, it’s getting less and less races but I feel we are getting closer and closer,” Ericsson said. “In Kuala Lumpur we were only about ten seconds from P10 and [at Suzuka] I don’t know how close we were but there were no retirements. I think we’re getting closer because a couple of months back we were like a minute off the points.
“So we definitely got closer but it wouldn’t hurt if a couple of guys retired or touched or something! That would be welcome in some of the races that’s left! Then if it happens we need to be there and pick the points up.
“I still think it’s possible, I really do. If you would have asked me around July I would have said it will be more difficult and we really need a lucky race, but now I think just a bit of fortune on our side in the race and we can be there and actually score a point.”
And Ericsson says Sauber has to be patient with new recruits as it chases a top ten result, having added key personnel over the past few months.
“We are in a bit of a transition as well with new people coming in and doing their thing. It’s not going to work perfectly overnight, so we need to give all these new people some time to do their thing with the team and their influence and it’s getting there.
“It’s definitely moving in the right direction and I think Kuala Lumpur was a bit of a better weekend competition-wise for us than Suzuka but still I think we went from being quite far off on Friday to being a lot better on race day. So we sort of had to work a bit harder but we were in the midfield fight [in Japan].
“Nobody retired but if we were a couple of places higher up the road and a couple of retirements and we would have been there to pick up a point. So we are not as far off as we were in the middle of the season, let’s put it that way. We are getting closer to the points and we just need a clean race and a bit better pace and then we can be there to pick it up.”
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