Ericsson: German GP result helps my case

Battling to prove he belongs on the F1 grid, Marcus Ericsson feels his ninth place at Hockenheim will go some way towards helping his case.

Ericsson is out of contract with Sauber at the end of this season.

But while his team-mate Charles Leclerc is already been linked to Ferrari, rumours suggest Ericsson’s days could be number unless he starts matching the rookie.

He did even better in Germany on Sunday, he beat him.

While Leclerc struggled on the slippery track, putting in a near perfect spin, Ericsson raced his way to ninth place, scoring for only the third time this season.

“It’s important every time you’re out on track, you need to show what you can do. Especially these times when you drive for your future,” he told the official F1 website.

“There’s a lot of talks about next year already and I need to prove that I should be in F1 for next year.

“Days like Sunday obviously help my case. Saturday was not too bad but could have been better.

“I need to keep doing strong races like this because I feel on race day I’m really, really strong and can race as good as anyone out there.

“But I still need to find something on Saturdays, so that’s my big target at the moment, to find performance there.”

Ericsson is hoping to remain with Sauber next season, hailing the progress that the team has made this season.

“It’s up to Fred [Vasseur, team principal] to take these decisions but it’s no secret that I want to stay here,” he said. “I think the team has something great going and I’ve been part of this journey for a few years now.

“The team has done a great job, but also I feel a part of that transformation as well with my work with the team. So it would be nice to continue that and see where we can go, because the progress that we’ve made this year has probably been the best of the field, and that’s been very impressive.”

Read more: All you need to know about the Hungarian GP

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