Leclerc, Ericcsson Confirmed at Alfa Romeo Sauber for 2018

[rubaru]

Teams in the lower levels, who aren't expected to win much prize money, need the sponsor money just to stay afloat. Regardless of how good Wehrlein is, he's not going to advance Sauber to the point that his prize money outweighs Ericsson's sponsor money. Unfortunate, yes, but it is good business sense.

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

"The state of F1" has been like this for long though, small teams with low cashflow needs drivers with big sponsors. I wonder what F1 would look like if every "fan" got to have their say, not only is there far between two fans that have the same opinion on everything, but we'd probably not have F1 at all if "fans" where allowed to decide.

 

[Filip Carlén]

I had hoped that Alfa sponsoring would have been Eriksson retirement (no, not eve we swedes like him ). But no, despite 0 points in over 2 seasons... Money talks I guess

 

[rubaru]

Curious about the livery. They show CNBC as a sponsor on the rear wing, but they won't be televising F1 in the US after this season with ESPN taking over.

 

[Rot Teufel]

This begs the question...where will Pascal go? Will he take a reserve/test driver role at Mercedes? Would he even want that? I think the only unconfirmed seats left are 1) Red Bull, but I can't imagine Ricciardo walking away from that, and 2) Williams, which seems likely to go to Kubica. Williams might be an option with the Mercedes engine, but that, too, might be another reserve driver role.

Pasacal had been dropped by Mercedes when Ocon arrived and was promoted in Force India. He probably was lucky enough to be hired in Sauber thanks to Mercedes, but after that was definitively dropped.

For the Williams he need again the Mercedes support, or better, some heavy sponsors like Sirotkin. But there's a fierce fight (Kubika, Di Resta, Sirotkin, maybe Kvjiat). Maybe there'll a place in STR next year if Ricciardo could leave RBR. I don't know if there're still places in Indycar...

 

[Paul Smith]

This begs the question...where will Pascal go? Will he take a reserve/test driver role at Mercedes? Would he even want that? I think the only unconfirmed seats left are 1) Red Bull, but I can't imagine Ricciardo walking away from that, and 2) Williams, which seems likely to go to Kubica. Williams might be an option with the Mercedes engine, but that, too, might be another reserve driver role.

Formule E maybe? Williams can’t sign him due to a clause with Martini that state Williams must have at least one driver over 25 on the team.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Formule E maybe? Williams can’t sign him due to a clause with Martini that state Williams must have at least one driver over 25 on the team.

According to Paddy Lowe, that 25 years old clause is not the case. They are free to hire whoever they want. Which is why both Sirotkin and Kvyat are top candidates for that second seat.

Also, regarding Ericsson and sponsors. Ericsson don't bring sponsor-money like he did to Caterham and Sauber when he started out in the team. After all, the people who paid for Ericsson now owns the Sauber team. So Ferrari would've had to poured in a lot of money to offset that.
Ericsson is safe as long as the owners like him (or whatever leverage he have runs out or whatever that actually makes them backing Ericsson and not e.g Rosenqvist)

 

[Paul Smith]

According to Paddy Lowe, that 25 years old clause is not the case. They are free to hire whoever they want. Which is why both Sirotkin and Kvyat are top candidates for that second seat.

Also, regarding Ericsson and sponsors. Ericsson don't bring sponsor-money like he did to Caterham and Sauber when he started out in the team. After all, the people who paid for Ericsson now owns the Sauber team. So Ferrari would've had to poured in a lot of money to offset that.
Ericsson is safe as long as the owners like him (or whatever leverage he have runs out or whatever that actually makes them backing Ericsson and not e.g Rosenqvist)

Wasn’t aware that clause was no longer a thing thanks for clarifying. But from what a few news outlets reported I interpreted it as Marcus did bring some backing which may have held implications in him retaining his seat over other candidates such as Antonio Giovinazzi.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

But from what a few news outlets reported I interpreted it as Marcus did bring some backing which may have held implications in him retaining his seat over other candidates such as Antonio Giovinazzi.

This will be a long post, and it might be a bit messy at points, but the whole Sauber-Ericsson situation is clouded in secrets, anonymous people and slightly weird decisions - but it is quite interesting.

That is one way to put it. His backers have never really come public and said they are backing them, and it doesn't look like Swedish media are doing much investigative journalism around it either. However, others have. Through his Jr.Formula years, it was talked about that his private, secret backers were the Rausing-Family and Persson-Family (Tetra Pak and Hennes & Mauritz (H&M)), this was never confirmed.
When Longbow-Finance bought Sauber it was billed as a Swiss investement firm - and strictly speaking, it is,- as it is a Swiss firm, and investment. And while they don't have to file public records on who is behind it. However, one of the former names of Longbow-Finance was Tetral Investement Management SA, and the company have the same address as Tetra Laval International SA, the parent company of Tetra Pak. You can see how the connection goes a full circle there.

In addition. Marcus Ericssons manager, is Eje Elgh (The Swedish expert commentator). When Eje Elgh had a STCC team, one of the drivers were Calle Rosenblad, Rosenblad is the grandson of Holger Craaford, who was one of the initial founders of Tetra Pak, together with e.g the Rausing-family.
To further bring in Swedish racing personalities, before Eje Elgh took the role as Ericsson's manager, he had Kenny Bräck as manager (the former CART/Indy driver) was also connected to Longbow, at least until he stopped working with Ericsson.

Now, this can be just adding 2 and 2 and getting 8, because it looks like most logic. Unless you turn back time to before Ericssons time in F1.

Up until 2010, Marcus Ericsson owned 60% of a UK company under the name "M E Promotions Limited" The remaining 40% was owned by a UK business called Sportpro, which listed "activites in sports sponsorshop" as description. Sportpro was in turn part-owned by Swedish Ramsbury Invest. This is the private real estate of Stefan Persson who is the chairman of H&M, and the 17th richest person in the world. His son Karl-Johan Persson is also a shareholder in Ramsbury.
On the board of M E Promotions Limited was Marcus Ericsson, His father Thomas and a certain Karl-Johan Persson.
M E Promotions was dissolved in 2010, however a company with the same name still exists, now in the Netherlands, and Sportpro still owns 40% of that company. (Don't know the reason for this - but I guess there is something about taxes, secrecy etc. that makes it wiser to have in the Netherlands compared to the UK).
The biggest shareholder in Sportpro by a "strange coincidence" is Longbow-Finance, just to tie up the connections even more.

In addition to this, shareholders of Sportpro includes the mentioned Kenny Bräck, but alongside Longbow and Ramsbury is also Olsbergs, a fairly large electro-hydraulic control system manufacturer in Sweden.
To finish it all off, Pascal Picci was appointed as the new Chairman of Sauber when Longbow bought the team. Picci is on the board of Sportpro, together with Karl-Johan Persson and Finn Rausing of the Rausing-Family and Tetra-Pak/Tetra Laval.

So, while they are trying to not talk about it in Sweden by the looks of it, and there is no interest in finding out who is pouring out so much money to found Swedes in F1/F2 it seems pretty likely that the same people who have bankrolled the whole career of Ericsson, also are the people that owns Sauber. And thus, Ericsson should be pretty safe for a Sauber seat for as long as they like each other.

On a personal note is why this leaves a slightly bad taste in my mouth. One is the complete secrecy, and the way people connected to longbow,sportpro,tetra,Ericsson etc. also works for the Swedish F1 broadcaster, and seemingly tries to undermine the connections. It is also the drivers that seemingly gets backing.
While you had some of the same in Mexico, with Telmex deciding to found drivers to get a Mexican in F1, and they chose Perez and Gutierrez. At least there have been no secrecy, and it was about finding the best driver from Mexico to put in the seat.
Here you have Ericsson being backed, and then seemingly out of nothing Sauber decided to give Gustav Malja test in the in-season test. Just to show that they support Swedes that are somewhat sub-par. Malja have 5 podiums in 3 seasons of F.Renault 3.5 and GP/F2. and a total of 5 race wins in 7 years of single seater racing. While that happens you have Felix Rosenqvist driving whatever he is able to due to little money and winning in almost whatever he drivers, no matter if it is F3, FE, GT or Indy Lights or the BMW Junior Joel Eriksson.

Oh well. Long post, and I guess many jumps out halfway. Regardless TL;DR - Ericssons backers and owners of Sauber are the same. Ericsson is safe unless Sauber is effectively bought by someone else.

 

[Ricoow]

Ericsson must have bags and bags and bags.....................and bags and bags and bags....................and bags and bags and bags....................and bags and bags and bags....................and bags and bags and bags....................and bags and bags and bags....................and bags and bags and bags....................and bags and bags and bags....................and bags and bags and bags....................and bags and bags and bags....................and bags and bags and bags....................and bags and bags and bags....................and bags and bags and bags....................and bags and bags and bags....................and bags and bags and bags of cash flowing into the team.

He really is the worst driver on the grid by a long margin.

I was trying to see if he made word art. Conclusion: He just spammed some words and way too much dots.

 

[Matt]

Sorry to have disappointed you, and the 7* other Ericsson fans here at RD

*7 at the time of posting, more might come crawling out of the wood works.

 

[Rob]

Sadly it's not a Sauber - Alfa Romeo.

So....to sum:

We have a title sponsor that makes cars with that name, who is owned by Fiat-Chrysler, but does not make the engine *in* the race car, but instead, buys an engine from an Italian company who also has real world cars, but makes engines for the series Chrysler runs in for themselves and others.

Errr....

Good luck F1.

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

Felix Rosenqvist not getting a chance in F1 is a bigger scandal than Ericsson keeping his seat as far as I'm concerned.
Thanks for the lengthy post @Ole Marius Myrvold !

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Thanks for the lengthy post @Ole Marius Myrvold !

You are welcome. I think I should write it in a word document or something, add some sources, and make it easier to read, it seems like every 6 months or so the Ericsson-situation pops up on different forums, and it would be easier to just copy-paste instead of writing it from scratch every time

 

[Jan Larsen]

How in the hell do you know so much? . I knew he was backed by Tetra Pak and a few others, but your post suggests its basically half of Sweden. Ericsson's ability to attract lots of, and massively wealthy, sponsors is actually quite impressive.

 

[Kasper Stoltze]

Felix Rosenqvist not getting a chance in F1 is a bigger scandal than Ericsson keeping his seat as far as I'm concerned.
[/USER] !

I agree! Felix is such a talented guy, I would really like to see him get a chance in F1!
Can't believe he haven't already, but then agian, money talks!

Thank you for a very thourough explanation @Ole Marius Myrvold

 

[Paul Smith]

You are welcome. I think I should write it in a word document or something, add some sources, and make it easier to read, it seems like every 6 months or so the Ericsson-situation pops up on different forums, and it would be easier to just copy-paste instead of writing it from scratch every time

Please do so this is a very interesting read mate thanks!