Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson quipped he wants to “show the team what it is missing” after he secured the best qualifying result of his Formula 1 career in Brazil.
Ericsson will relinquish his race seat at the end of 2018 after Sauber opted to recruit Antonio Giovinazzi to partner Kimi Raikkonen.
Ericsson will remain affiliated with Sauber in a reserve role but will also compete in IndyCar after penning a deal to race for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports.
Sauber displayed strong pace throughout qualifying at Interlagos and Ericsson progressed through to Q3, where he qualified in seventh, ahead of Ferrari-bound team-mate Charles Leclerc.
That will become sixth due to Daniel Ricciardo’s grid penalty for taking on a new turbocharger.
“I’m leaving after Abu Dhabi, but I want to leave on a high and I want to show what the team is missing,” he said.
“I scored points the last two weekends, now P7 today. I need to keep doing that to really go out on a high, and then I have an exciting thing going for next year as well.
“It was great to do that but I think the main thing is that both me and Charles are ahead of the midfield and the best of the rest.
“I think that’s a great performance from us drivers, but also the team has done a great job.
“We know on this track as well, it’s so tight between all of the teams. It was a great performance and I’m really, really happy.”
Sauber holds only a three-point advantage over Toro Rosso in the scrap for eighth in the Constructors’ Championship and Ericsson is hopeful that gap can be built in Sunday’s 71-lap race.
“It’ll be interesting with the weather again tomorrow to see what it does,” he said.
“We’ll be starting P6, P7 with the Sauber cars. We have a really great opportunity to score some big points for the team, so it’s going to be an exciting afternoon.”
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