Sauber as "best of the rest" not unrealistic for 2019 - Ericsson

Marcus Ericsson believes that there is nothing wrong with Sauber aiming to be the best of the rest team for the 2019 season. Last week, Sauber's chairman Pascal Picci stated that the Hinwil-based team was aiming to be F1's fourth-best outfit next year.

"It is our ambition next year to be the fourth team," he said. "This is our ambition. I know I exaggerate, Fred [Vasseur, Sauber team principal] is telling me that I am! But if you don’t have dreams, then you don’t succeed very often."

Sauber has vastly improved on its car this year, as it has been running in the points at a number of races. For the last two years, it has been towards the back of the field, scoring just seven points in 41 races. But this year has seen a boost, as its bagged 18 points in the opening half of the season.

Despite still being a long way behind the likes of Renault and Haas, Ericsson says Sauber is right to aim high: "I think it’s not an unrealistic aim to have," he told Crash.net.

"As a team you need to always aim high and I think with the rate of progress we made this year, I think for sure it has to be our target to be in the top of the midfield come next year. We have to see but I feel that’s not unrealistic," he added.

Ericsson also believes that the potential of the team is huge, and with its financial future in the sport secure, the Swede can see it on the rise: "I think the potential in this team is massive," he said.

"If you go to the factory the facilities are great and the wind tunnel is great. 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."

Fergal Walsh