Marcus Ericsson

**Marcus Thorbjörn Ericsson** (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈmǎr:kʉs ˈtɔ̂r:bjøːɳ ˈêːrɪk:sɔn]; born 2 September 1990) is a Swedish racing driver who used to drive in F1.5 for Caterham, Sauber and Alfa Romeo.

## Personal Life

Ericsson's younger brother Hampus is also a racing driver. He has competed in the 2017 and 2018 F4 British Championships, and the 2018 BRDC British Formula 3 Championship, with Fortec Motorsport. He moved up to the BRDC British Formula 3 Championship for a full season in 2019 and won a race at Snetterton.

## F1.5 Career

### Caterham (2014)

#### 2014 Season

On 21 November 2013, It was announced that Ericsson was a candidate to drive for the Caterham F1 Team in 2014 with Kamui Kobayashi as teammate. On 21 January 2014, the team announced that Ericsson and Kobayashi would be their race driver line up for the forthcoming season, with Robin Frijns as reserve.

In the Monaco Grand Prix, he was involved in a collision with Williams driver Felipe Massa during qualifying, which resulted in Massa not advancing to the second part of the qualifying session. Ericsson was penalised with two penalty points and had to start from the pit lane. After this, he suffered a crash in the rain in Hungary, when he lost control of his car on the exit of turn 3 and hit the barriers very hard. He was unhurt, but the car was destroyed and it took him until the Belgian Grand Prix where he could match the Marussias again.

Due to Caterham F1 falling into administration on 21 October 2014, neither team driver was able to compete at the United States Grand Prix. Despite this, Ericsson flew to Texas to be a commentator the race for Swedish television and secured a new drive for 2015. Ericsson terminated his contract with Caterham on 12 November. He eventually finished the season in 14th position.

### Sauber (2015-2017)

#### 2015 Season

At the 2014 United States Grand Prix, on 1 November 2014, Sauber announced that it had signed Ericsson for 2015. In his first race with the team in Australia, Ericsson finished in the points becoming the first points-scoring finish by a Swedish driver since Stefan Johansson.

Malaysia was the first time that Ericsson made it into Q3. He spun on the fourth lap after an unsuccessful overtaking attempt on Force India's Nico Hülkenberg which resulted in retirement.

During the summer break, Sauber announced that Ericsson along with Nasr had both extended their deals with the team for the 2016 season.

#### 2016 Season

In 2016, Sauber missed pre-season testing due to financial concerns hurting their car development for 2016. Ericsson was running in 15th before a power issue in Australia. He scored 35 points over the season.

#### 2017 Season

Ericsson's 2017 campaign did not start well as he had to retire due to a hydraulic issue in Australia. He struggled to match his teammate Wehrlein in Bahrain with his race ending in another disappointing retirement due to the gearbox. He finished 15th in Russia beating his teammate for the first time in the season. Sauber started to struggle in Monaco with Ericsson crashing into the barrier while overtaking the safety car to get on the lead lap.

### Alfa Romeo (2018)

#### 2018 Season

For 2018 Ericsson retained his seat at Sauber, which became the Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 team in partnership with the car outfit. Alongside he had a new teammate Charles Leclerc. Ericsson had his best season in 2018, taking his maiden pole position at Brazil and scoring over 100 points in the season for the first time in his career.

At the Italian Grand Prix, Ericsson had a high speed accident in second practice at Turn 1, with a DRS issue causing the car to lose control and slam the wall where the runoff is. Ericsson hit the wall heavily, and flipped 3 times before coming to rest on all wheels but was uninjured.