The double top 10 finish by the two Alfa Romeo Sauber drivers in the Austrian Grand Prix was the first double top 10 finish by the team since the 2015 Formula 1 season.
Coming into the ninth race of the 21-race 2018 Formula 1 season, the Austrian Grand Prix, Alfa Romeo Sauber had been having their best season since the 2015 season by far, particularly as a result of the success of 20-year-old rookie Charles Leclerc, the 2016 GP3 Series champion and 2017 Formula 2 champion who is a member of the Ferrari Driver Academy.
In the 2016 season and the 2017 season combined, Sauber drivers had totaled just seven points. Leclerc alone had 11 points this season coming into the 71-lap Austrian Grand Prix at the 10-turn, 2.683-mile (4.318-kilometer) Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Styria, Austria, and Marcus Ericsson had two points of his own.
In the Austrian Grand Prix, Leclerc started in 17th place while Ericsson started in 18th. Both drivers made up eight positions throughout the course of the race en route to finishes of ninth and 10th, respectively.
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Leclerc’s ninth place finish was his second best finish of the season so far. It was his fifth top 10 finish so far this season, and it was his fifth top 10 finish in the last six races. Ericsson’s 10th place finish was his second best finish of the season so far as well. It was his second top 10 finish of the season, and it was his best finish since he finished in ninth in the Bahrain Grand Prix.
In addition to Ericsson’s 10th place finish being his second top 10 finish so far this season, it was also his second top 10 finish since he finished in ninth in the 2015 Italian Grand Prix, as he failed to score any points in both the 2016 and 2017 seasons.
The last time that both of Sauber’s drivers finished a race in the top 10 and scored points was in the 2015 season. The race in which they did so was the third race of the 2015 season, which was the Chinese Grand Prix. Felipe Nasr finished that race in eighth place, while Ericsson finished in 10th.
Prior to the 2018 Austrian Grand Prix, a total of 65 races had passed without Sauber’s two drivers both securing top 10 finishes in the same race. In those 65 races, one Sauber driver finished in the top 10 in 15 of them. Of those 15 races, five took place in the first eight races of this season, so the team were clearly headed in the right direction prior to their double top 10 finish this past weekend.
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With Sauber drivers Charles Leclerc and Marcus Ericsson having both finished in the top 10 in the Austrian Grand Prix, will they continue to have success throughout the remainder of the 2018 Formula 1 season, which is likely the final season during which they will be teammates at Sauber as a result of the fact that Leclerc is poised to replace 2007 Formula 1 champion Kimi Raikkonen at Scuderia Ferrari next year?
The next race on the schedule is the British Grand Prix, which is scheduled to be broadcast live on ESPN at Silverstone Circuit this Sunday, July 8 at 9:10 a.m. ET. Tune in to the race to see how Leclerc and Ericsson perform.