Marcus Ericsson will certainly keep IndyCar as one of his options for 2019 along with his reserve driver role with Sauber.
After four years with Sauber and five years as a race driver in F1, Ericsson has been relegated to a reserve role from 2019 with the Swiss team choosing Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi as their drivers for the new season.
This has left the Swede to secure a race programme for 2019 alongside his third driver role. Among the host of options available to him, Ericsson has America’s IndyCar championship in the definite list.
“I think IndyCar looks fun, so that’s something I would definitely look at but there’s also some other series that looks interesting,” said Ericsson to the media in Russia. “At the moment, I don’t want to close any doors.
“I want to keep all options open and combine that with my role with Sauber.” While conceding that Raikkonen’s hiring was a bad news for him, the Swede revealed that a month ago he was certain to compete in F1 in 2019.
“I think one month ago I was quite confident that I was going to be racing in F1 next year but that’s the thing with this paddock that things change very quickly and unfortunately it changed for the bad for me.
“It’s obviously disappointing to be not racing. It’s all you want to do; you want to race. It’s not good news for me, obviously. Still, I’m happy to be able to continue my relationship with the team.
“My goal is still to come back into Formula One. I think for 2019 that’s not going to happen but hopefully after that there will be possibilities to come back. That’s still the goal, to come back to Formula One,” he added.
Ericsson started his F1 career with Caterham in 2014 after which he moved to Sauber in 2015, with whom he has been racing since. It has been a tough ride for the Swede with only 15 points in five seasons.
