Marcus Ericsson

Born in Kumla, Örebro County, Ericsson's first taste of motorsport came when he was nine years old racing in karts. "I got a call from Fredrik Ekblom, whom I ran in British Formula 3000 and Indy Lights. He now runs a kart circuit and he told me about a nine-year old kid who'd walked in off the street and nearly broke the lap record" recalled Richard Dutton, head of Fortec Motorsport.[3] Ekblom managed to convince Ericsson's father, Tomas, to buy his son a kart and the young Swede stayed in karting for the next four years, "I'd never really thought about racing as a career. My family didn't have the money for me to race formula cars so we never thought about it" Ericsson recalled.[3]

In 2006 Ericsson's career got backing from former Champ Car driver and 1999 Indianapolis 500 winner Kenny Bräck. "I spotted Marcus at a race in Gothenburg" Bräck said, "He didn't win the race because his engine blew up with two laps to go but he was clearly the best out there. He didn't get caught in any battles when passing – he'd just wait for the right opportunity, then he pounced and he was away. He has such patience but when he does go for it, it measures so perfectly. He reminded me of watching Alain Prost" Bräck added.[3]

Ericsson won his second Formula BMW race at Brands Hatch by six seconds.

Bräck convinced Richard Dutton, who ran Bräck in the British Formula Three Championship in 1989, to race Ericsson for his Fortec Motorsport team's 2007 Formula BMW UK title challenge. Ericsson said of his chances during the season, "I was thinking that I should be around top eight to start with, trying for podiums and maybe wins by the end of the year".[3] Ericsson's first win came at the first meeting of the series at Brands Hatch where he took third place in the first race and won from pole position in the second race. Following his win, Ericsson was described by Autosport as "the best young talent" Bräck had ever seen.[4] Ericsson was in the title race for the whole season, challenging Czech Josef Král and Brit Henry Arundel. In the end Ericsson, aged 16, won the title by 40 points from Kral, becoming the final Champion of the British Formula BMW series prior to the series merge with the German series to make a European championship.

Ericsson driving for Fortec Motorsport at the Croft round of the 2008 British Formula Three Championship.

Following his win of the Formula BMW title, Ericsson began aiming for a seat in Formula Three. Tests followed with British Formula 3 team Räikkönen Robertson Racing as part of his prize for winning the title that year. Afterwards Ericsson had a test with frontrunning Formula 3 Euro Series team ASM, later ART Grand Prix. Despite an offer to join ASM, Ericsson opted to stay in England and join Fortec's British Formula 3 team.[5] Ericsson received with two pole positions and a handful of podium finishes, but no victories, which gave him fifth overall in the championship.

Ericsson driving for TOM'S at the 2009 Macau Grand Prix, where he finished fourth.

During the winter of 2008, Ericsson signed a contract with the Japanese F3 team TOM'S to compete full-time in the championship for the upcoming season. Ericsson said that he was more likely to gain the experience needed to win the Macau Grand Prix in comparison to competing further in the British championship.[6] Ericsson won the Japanese F3 championship, and also won races when making guest appearances back in British F3. He consequently participated in the Macau Grand Prix where he qualified in pole position and finished the main race in fourth position.

Ericsson moved into the GP2 Asia Series for the 2009–10 GP2 Asia Series, driving originally for the ART Grand Prix team.[7] However, it was later confirmed that Ericsson would drive for Super Nova Racing in the 2010 GP2 Series.[8] He had been expected to complete the rest of the Asian series with the team, but Jake Rosenzweig was signed to replace Ericsson for the final two rounds.[9] Ericsson returned to Super Nova for the GP2 Series, partnering Josef Král and later Luca Filippi. He took his first series victory at Valencia, but only scoring points on two further occasions restricted him to seventeenth place in the drivers' championship.

Ericsson driving for iSport at the Monza round of the 2011 GP2 Series.

Ericsson switched to the iSport International team for 2011, alongside Sam Bird. He finished sixth in the Asia series championship, and tenth in the main series championship. He remained with iSport for 2012, alongside Jolyon Palmer. He won at Spa, beginning a run of six consecutive points finishes to the end of the season, including two podium finishes. This lifted him to eighth in the championship.

In 2013, he got the chance to drive for the reigning champions DAMS, taking pole position in Spain and Great Britain. In Germany he won the feature race, and he continued with podium positions in Hungary, Belgium, Singapore and Abu Dhabi to finish sixth in the championship.

Ericsson drove for Brawn GP at the young driver test at Circuito de Jerez over three days, on 1–3 December 2009. He tested alongside IndyCar Series driver Mike Conway.[10] Conway had the edge by three-tenths of a second, however team principal Ross Brawn commended Ericsson for his performance, saying that he had "performed very well showing exceptional maturity in his approach and feedback".[11]

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.[12] 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.[13]

Ericsson during the 2014 Monaco Grand Prix where he wore a special helmet in tribute to famous Swedish racing driver Ronnie Peterson.

Ericsson qualified 20th in his debut race – the 2014 Australian Grand Prix, running 11th before he fell back with oil pressure problems. In Malaysia, he qualified last, finishing 14th in front of main rival Max Chilton. In Spain, he outqualified Kobayashi for the first time of his career, but he was behind both Marussia cars. He finished the race in 20th position, the last classified finisher.[14] In the next race, 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.[15] Ericsson was penalised with two penalty points and had to start from the pit lane. He finished in 11th place, just missing out on his and Caterham's first points.[16][17]

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.[18] He was unhurt, but the car was completely destroyed and it took him until the Belgian Grand Prix where he could match the Marussias again, losing 16th place to Chilton on the penultimate lap.[19] In Singapore, he finished in 15th place and in Japan, he out-qualified both Marussias and Kobayashi for 19th position.[20] He started 17th, but spun behind the safety car in heavy rain, and had to fight back from last place. He finished 17th, in front of both Marussias and Kobayashi, but his performance was overshadowed by the crash of Bianchi.[21] At the inaugural Russian Grand Prix, he qualified in a career-best 17th position and this time, he was 0.15 seconds from making it into Q2.[22] During the race, he started 16th but fell back, finishing 19th overall but in front of his main rivals – the other Caterham and the sole Marussia of Chilton, who both eventually retired from the race.[23]

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.[24] He eventually finished the season in 19th position, highest of the Caterham drivers that took part in 2014.[17]

At the 2014 United States Grand Prix, on 1 November 2014, Sauber announced that it had signed Ericsson for 2015.[25][26] In his first race with the team in Australia, Ericsson finished in eighth position, recording the first points-scoring finish by a Swedish driver since Stefan Johansson finished third at the 1989 Portuguese Grand Prix.[27][28]

Malaysia was the first time that Ericsson made it into Q3, qualifying 10th but was ultimately promoted to 9th. He spun on the fourth lap after an unsuccessful overtaking attempt on Force India's Nico Hülkenberg which resulted in retirement.[29] In China, Ericsson again made it into Q3 in qualifying, again qualifying 10th. He finished the race in the same position, scoring one point after Max Verstappen's engine blew up with only a few laps remaining.[30] In Bahrain he qualified outside the top 10, and held 8th position when a pit stop failure caused him to fall down the field, and he ultimately finished the race in 14th position.[31] In the first European leg of the season he finished 14th in Spain and 13th in Monaco.[32][33]

In the 2015 British Grand Prix he finished 11th – just outside the points.[34] He scored one more point before the summer break, with a 10th-place finish in Hungary, followed by another 10th position in Belgium. At the Italian Grand Prix Ericsson qualified for Q3, where he ended up 10th, before he was given a grid penalty for blocking Hülkenberg in Q1.[35] Ericsson eventually finished 9th – taking his fifth points position for the year and again being in front of teammate Felipe Nasr.[36][37]

During the summer break Sauber announced that Ericsson along with Nasr had both extended their deals with the team for the 2016 season.[38]

Ericsson driving the C35 Sauber at the 2016 Austrian Grand Prix

In 2016, Sauber missed pre-season testing due to financial concerns hurting their car development for 2016.[39] Ericsson was running in 15th before a power issue in Australia and he drove a good race to take twelfth in Bahrain in the next round.[40] He ran just outside the points in China but steadily dropped to sixteenth, still four places ahead of Nasr.[41] In Russia he recovered from first lap contact to beat Nasr once again and take fourteenth.[40][42] In Spain he was fantastic again as he was twelfth, but in Monaco he crashed into his teammate clumsily which ruined his next race in Canada as he started at the back due to a grid penalty.[40][43][44] He went on a slump in the following races, with 17th in Baku and 15th in Austria, with qualifying crashes in Silverstone and Hungary forcing him to start from the pit lane.[40][45][46] Another bad couple of races followed in Hockenheim and Spa, but after that he got back on track. In Monza, he maximised the car finishing sixteenth whilst in Singapore he made Q2 and was close to scoring his first point until a strategic blunder from the team.[40] He ran close to points in Malaysia and Suzuka, thrashing his teammate in qualifying and the race.[40][47][48][49] In Austin, he ran eleventh for part of the race but ended up fourteenth and in Mexico he put in one of the drives of the season as he recovered from a first lap crash to eleventh, just outside the points.[40][50][51] He crashed out of the race in Brazil but finished fifteenth in Abu Dhabi.[40]

Ericsson driving the C36 Sauber at the 2017 Chinese Grand Prix

Ericsson's 2017 campaign did not start well as he had to retire due to a hydraulic issue in Australia.[52] He qualified 14th and finished 15th in China.[52] He struggled to match his teammate Wehrlein in Bahrain with his race ending in another disappointing retirement due to the gearbox.[52] He finished 15th in Russia beating his teammate for the first time in the season.[53] Ericsson got his best result of the season in 11th in Azerbaijan where he fought wildly for points in Azerbaijan with his teammate.[52] Sauber started to struggle in Monaco with Ericsson crashing into the barrier while overtaking the safety car to get on the lead lap.[54] He finished 13th in Canada and would fail to score points for the rest of the season.[52][55]

Ericsson driving the C37 Sauber at the 2018 Austrian Grand Prix

Ericsson in 2018

For 2018 Ericsson retained his seat at Sauber, which became Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 team in partnership with the car outfit. Alongside he had a new teammate Charles Leclerc.[56] At the Bahrain Grand Prix, Ericsson finished in ninth position, scoring his first points since the 2015 Italian Grand Prix, after a total of 49 races without scoring a point.[57][58] He then scored further points at the Austrian, German, Belgian, USA and Mexican Grands Prix.[59] 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.[60]

Just before the 2018 Russian Grand Prix it was announced that he was to be replaced at Sauber by Antonio Giovinazzi, but would remain with the team as their third driver and brand ambassador.[61]

Ericsson at Texas Motor Speedway in 2019

On 30 October 2018, it was announced that Ericsson would race full-time for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports in the 2019 IndyCar Series.[61] During his rookie year, he scored a podium finish at the Detroit Grand Prix.[62] In September, Ericsson missed the Grand Prix of Portland as he was on standby for an injured Kimi Räikkönen at the Belgian Grand Prix; Räikkönen would ultimately run the race.[63] He ended the 2019 season 17th in points.[64]

Ericsson will move to Chip Ganassi Racing for the 2020 IndyCar Series season.[64] He was confirmed for a longer tenure with the team in October, re-upping for at least another two seasons.[65]

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

(key)

(key)

^† Did not finish, but was classified as he had completed more than 90% of the race distance.

(key)

(key)

* Season still in progress.