Felipe Nasr Loses Sponsor; Will His Seat At Sauber Follow?

Sauber F1 confirmed over the weekend that Felipe Nasr has lost his primary sponsor, which could put Nasr at risk as Sauber looks for drivers with funding.

Felipe Nasr is out a sponsor and that may put him out of Formula One.

Nasr’s team Sauber F1 publicly announced on Friday that the 24-year-old Brazilian has lost the sponsorship of Banco de Brasil, and that the organization is going to consider that as it looks to confirm its second driver for 2017.

“They have interrupted their 2017 sponsorship program,” Sauber team principal Monisha Kaltenborn told media outlets including Racer. “Our seat is still open. We are including that in our assessment, and that’s all there is to say.”

Losing a primary sponsor is terrible for any racing driver, but in the case of Nasr it may be the thing that also interrupts his three-year Formula One career.

Sauber made public statements earlier this year saying that they are only interested in drivers who are able to bring financial support to the team. With the loss of Banco de Brasil – which had sponsored him for much of his career – Nasr no longer meets that criteria.

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He has raced for Sauber the past two seasons, with his best finish being fifth place in the 2015 Australian Grand Prix. Nasr is currently sitting seventeenth in this year’s Formula One drivers’ championship standings, with just one Top 10 in twenty races.

It’s a less than ideal resume and with seats in Formula One already limited thanks to other folks’ offseason moves, if Nasr does get dropped by Sauber he may not have any place else to go for 2017.

Sauber has already announced that Nasr’s teammate Marcus Ericsson will return next year, and Racer claims that Manor’s Pascal Wehrlein is the leading candidate to replace Nasr should it come to that.

Nasr won the Formula BMW Europe championship in 2009, the British Formula Three championship two years later, and came in third in the GP2 series in 2014 while also serving as a test driver for Williams.

But motor racing, like many sports, is about present accomplishments. Nasr has yet to even see a podium in two seasons of Formula One racing and now without a primary sponsor to bring money into the team, he may not have enough to offer for Kaltenborn to consider extending him for a third campaign.

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While it would be unfortunate if a late sponsor loss threw a wrench in Felipe Nasr’s Formula One career, his team has set a clear direction that he doesn’t currently fit into. But he still has one race left this season; Nasr will be on the grid for Sauber at Sunday’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Do you think Felipe Nasr will be racing for Sauber F1 next season?

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