As everyone knows it is not sensible to take testing times too seriously as we have no idea what fuel loads or set ups the teams are running and most will sand bag a little bit, however if your Sauber you could be forgiven for feeling very optimistic just over three weeks away the season starting.
Last season was one to forget for the Sauber F1 team they got no points and finished only ahead of Caterham, they also had a bad 2013 which came as a shock after they had a very good 2012 season by their standards getting a few podiums, most famously with Kamui Koyabashi at the Japanese GP. At the back end of last season there were many questions whether they would even be on the grid, they were struggling for money massively and the fact that they are even on the grid counts as the first success of the year.
Sauber 2015 Season Preview
No. 12 Felipe Nasr
Sauber, has well as having a new sponsor (one of very few to appear on the car) and therefore livery this season, also have a brand new driver line up, starting with Felipe Nasr. 22 year old Brazilian driver Felipe Nasr has impressed many people driving in the lower formulae. In 2009 he came first in the Formula BMW Europe series and in 2011 he came first in the British Formula 3 series. After that he joined GP2 and finished tenth in his first series with DAMS. For his second series he joined Carlin and improved to finish on the podium regularly and was involved in the title battle with new team mate Marcus Ericsson, however they were both beaten by Fabio Leimer. In 2014 he really came into his own in GP2 and fought for the title with winner Jolyon Palmer, the pair were involved in amazing wheel to wheel racing the whole way through the season. Also in 2014 he was the test and reserve driver for Williams F1 team. The number Nasr will be using for F1 is 12.
No. 9 Marcus Ericsson
He is joined by 24 year old Swedish driver Marcus Ericsson for his second season in Formula One. Ericsson won the 2007 BMW UK series and the 2009 Japanese Formula 3 series. In 2010 he joined the GP2 series with the Super Nova Racing team and picked up one win. After a couple of years with iSport he joined reigning champions DAMS and was unbelievably unlucky as he had pole positions but he could never convert these into race wins, whether that was for car failures or crashes. He finished sixth in the championship. In 2014 he got his chance in Formula One with the Caterham F1 team. He had a great debut season considering he was in a car that wasn’t capable of achieving a lot. His best placed finish was 11th in Monaco and was very unlucky not to score points. He finished in 19th place ahead of teammate Kamui Kobayashi, Marussia’s Max Chilton and Esteban Gutierrez in the Sauber. His F1 racing number is 9.
Raffaele Marciello
The pair are joined by up and coming Italian super star Raffaele Marciello. He joined the Ferrari driver academy in 2010. Nicknamed ‘Lello’ the driver will be Sauber’s reserve and test driver for the 2015 season and start his second season in GP2 swapping to Trident team. Last season he picked up one win and two third places with Racing Engineering. In 2013 he was FIA European F3 champion with 13 wins. This season he is meant to be getting the opportunity to drive between five and six free practise sessions so Lello will the opportunity to show how good he is in an F1 car.
Sauber had an extremely good first test in Jerez, Felipe Nasr managed 197 laps with a best time of 1m 21.545s and Marcus Ericsson completing 185 laps with a best time of 1m 22.091s, so not only do the two drivers have a healthy competition already posting very close times, the team itself seem to be posting very good times but most importantly they had very consistent running without too many problems – as did most teams which was a complete contrast to the first pre-season test last year.
Onto the first Barcelona test and Nasr took to the track for day 1. Their morning session all went to plan but then in the afternoon he was involved in a crash with Susie Wolff. Both blaming each other for the incident, neither wanted to admit they were in the wrong but what was agreed was it was an unnecessary incident that didn’t need to happen and put an end of Sauber’s running. He completed 79 laps and on day 4 he returned to the car and despite issues in the morning he managed 73 laps with some long runs in the afternoon, his best time for the rest was a 1.24.956. Day 2 Ericsson was in the car had a full day running despite a few issues he completed 113 laps. Day 3 was slightly different as a gearbox issue plagued running and he only managed 53 laps, his fastest time was a 1.26.540.
For the final test Ericsson was in the car for day 1 and got in some good running and practise starts managing 122 laps and the second fastest time of the day with a 1.24.276. Sauber ran the same program for day 2 with Nasr in the car and he managed 141 and the 3rd fastest time of 1.24.071. On day 3 and minor power unit issue didn’t affect running as Ericsson got in 123 laps and pit stop practises, finishing 6th with a 1.24.477 for his final day in the car before the season kicks off in Australia. On the final day of testing Nasr was in the car and completed 159 laps finishing in 3rd with a 1.24.023.
A factor of the Sauber posting good times could of course be that maybe Ferrari have improved their engine, of course it’s probably not going to be enough to complete with Mercedes for the season however maybe it’s just moved them that step closer to being able to complete for points with the likes of Force India and Toro Rosso, as well as Lotus and McLaren, until they get up to speed. Sauber should make a return to the points this season and they have fresh young drivers up for the challenge.
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