Marcus Ericsson admits he is surprised by how early his future with Sauber has been decided after retaining his seat for next year.
The Swiss outfit was the first squad to announce it’s full driver lineup for 2016 on Thursday, when it confirmed it was retaining both Marcus Ericsson and fellow team-mate Felipe Nasr.
Ericsson who made the move from Caterham to Sauber this year, said sorting out his future so early was a boost, as it will help him on his performance without any distractions.
“Doing it this early is perfect,” Ericsson told reporters on Thursday in Hungary.
“It means we can focus only on the performance during the rest of the year and not thinking too much about next year because you know what you have. It’s great news and I’m really happy.”
He added: “I was very surprised, actually, that it was this early.
“But the team made it very clear that they are both very happy with both me and Felipe and wanted us to stay for next year, and from my side I’m really happy to get to stay on.”
Upgrades are coming
Sauber, which started the season strong but then fell behind it’s direct rivals in recent races, but the team is planning significant upgrades for the second half of the season.
The outfit will run an upgraded Ferrari power unit in the Belgian Grand Prix, before introducing aero improvements in Singapore.
Ericsson is hopeful that the upgrades will help Sauber return to the position it was at when the season began.
“That’s the plan, because now it’s no secret that we have lost a bit of momentum and we are struggling a bit to keep up with the midfield pack,” he said.
“But, hopefully, first at Spa with the engine it should be a quite decent step, and then Singapore we have the aero upgrade, so hopefully in the second half of the year we should be back on the level where we can fight for Q3 and points on a regular basis like we started the year.
“It’s difficult to say how much it will bring us, but it should be another decent step for the laptime.
“Hopefully for the last races we can be at the level that we saw in the beginning of the year. That’s the aim.”
Images courtesy of Sauber F1 Team
