Sauber confirm Leclerc & Ericsson, as Alfa Romeo livery revealed

[CNR]

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/headlines/2017/12/sauber-confirm-leclerc---ericsson--as-alfa-romeo-livery-revealed.html

"Reigning Formula 2 champion Charles Leclerc will race alongside Marcus Ericsson at Sauber next season. The Ferrari Driver Academy member takes over from Pascal Wehrlein, with Antonio Giovinazzi to serve as third driver for 2018."

[BigWorm]

Oh boy, Ericsson stays. So what happens with Wehrlein?

[Rollo]

https://i.imgur.com/rFnp3ah.gif

Aha, Leclerc!

[Nitrodaze]

Oh boy, Ericsson stays. So what happens with Wehrlein?

Interestingly, it would seem Force India has helped Mercedes to select the protege that would progress into a drive in the Silver Arrow in the near future. I always felt that whichever of the two mercedes protege that gets the Renault or Force India drive would be the natural option to progress into a seat in Mercedes. While Werhlein has impressed everyone with his pace and racecraft, he has not appealed to teams that would have given him the step up from the back marker teams. He is clearly better than a Sauber seat and certainly good enough for a Williams or Force India seat.

Other factors are that Mercedes do not demonstrate the same level of confidence in their proteges as RedBull does. You may argue that this is because Mercedes do not have a feeder team like Torro Ross through which they could nurture their young drivers from novice into a senior team drive. One way to compare how these two great teams go about developing their young drivers into a senior race seat, is to look at where they start their young driver's F1 careers from.

Redbull start the careers of their young drivers directly in the thick of the midfield. From there they could almost see the sharp end of the grid. In some circumstances they may find themselves right in thick of the sharp end and they gain invaluable experience and sometimes end up doing something magnificent like winning a race in a midfield car. Mercedes start their young drivers in back marker teams outside the midfields. It is a frustrating place for them, the best they could do from back there is pickup some points and be a regular nuisance to the faster midfield teams.

So Werhlein failing to secure a drive in 2018 is a Mercedes failing not Werhlein's in my opinion. Because if you were a team boss which if these two sets of drivers are you likely to employ if this was possible. I bet you would go for the drivers with regular midfield experience. This is the reason why Kyvat was included into Williams shortlist of drivers to replace Mass once it was known that he was parting ways with Redbull.

[driveace]

Is Leclerc anything to do with the French supermarket with the same name ?
seems to me that Ericsson either has lots of cash or some hold over some team manager
As his racing I find mediocre

[AndyL]

seems to me that Ericsson either has lots of cash or some hold over some team manager
As his racing I find mediocre

Ericsson is linked in some way with the new owners of Sauber I believe. Kaltenborn's departure from the team was reportedly over her refusing to favour Ericsson as they wanted.