In an interview with the media yesterday, Caterham driver Marcus Ericsson is hoping that this year marks the start of a long career in Formula One for him, even though his rookie season hasn’t gone according to plan.
Ericsson finally realised his dream of being on the grid this year when he was signed by Caterham, but Caterham have had a tough campaign, which has made Ericsson’s life difficult.
Not only has he had five retirements, but the constant speculation over the future of Caterham has also not helped. Despite all the setbacks, Ericcson is determined to remain in Formula One. In his interview with the media yesterday, Ericsson stated the following on the subject:-
‘The debut season in F1 is obviously very tough but it’s been okay. The aim for me is to stay in Formula One for many years and that’s what we’re working at doing at the moment.’
For me, Ericsson’s debut season in the sport hasn’t been okay at all. Personally, he has failed to deliver and has been outqualifed by his team mate Kamui Kobayashi and Andre Lotterer. But you could argue that Caterham hasn’t given him the car to perform and that is true. But he still could have extracted some pace and performance out of it like his team mates have or at least tried too.
As for Ericsson staying into the sport, I believe that it is the sponsorship that he brings with him (which is reported to be at least £10 million) that is keeping him at Caterham and could be the only way he will be retained. And I am sure that Ericsson and his management are looking into the options he has available for next season over the next few weeks.
Caterham were sold to a Swiss-Middle Eastern consortium in July and former F1 driver Christijan Albers was appointed team principal, but the Dutchman stepped down after barely two months in charge.
Further on in his interview, Ericsson has insisted that he’s focused on the job at hand once the race weekend arrives. Ericsson added the following:-
‘To be honest, when you’re in the car and preparing for race weekends you’re so focused on that you don’t really think about it. It’s not been something that has influenced me but obviously now we have the new owners that have come in and they’ve been pushing really hard to continue developing the car, so that’s been very positive. I think we’re in a good trend.’
As Ericsson points out, even though there will be concerns about what it is going on surrounding Caterham and also his own future, he appears to be focusing on the job at hand. It would seem that the steps that Caterham have undertaken during the past few months are ones that Ericsson is happy with and will only help the team move forward for the future.
But overall, I feel that Ericsson’s career in Formula One is very shaky. For me, Ericsson has struggled all season with extracting pace and performance out of the car and has failed to outperform his team mate too. Yes, Caterham isn’t the best car on the grid and yes Ericsson is a rookie that is still learning how to drive in Formula One, but he should have shown signs of improvement by now.
And Ericsson in my eyes has only gone backwards and shown that he just isn’t ready for Formula One. And I truly believe that even though I respect his objective to stay in Formula One for as long as he possibly can, I feel that he will only stay in the sport with the sponsorship he brings to a team and not based on his talent in a racing car.
Once again, we could be seeing another driver in the sport staying due to financial matters, rather than staying because he is talented enough to be in Formula One and has a long future in the sport. And that is a real shame for Ericsson, but at the end of the day, money talks nowadays rather than pure driving talent and Ericsson could be yet another driver to be labelled with this title of a ‘pay driver’ rather than a racing driver and I feel that he is already a ‘pay driver’ and will be for as long as he remains in the sport, I truly believe it.
