Marcus Ericsson was disappointed not to finish higher than 16th after he made ‘no mistakes from (his) side’ and labeled this year’s Chinese Grand Prix a ‘strong race’.
The Swede finished one place back from where he qualified. He started on a fresh set of soft tyres but this possible advantage was wiped out when the safety car was deployed.
“I think it was a decent race, I made a good start and had a good first lap. When the safety car came out, we went for a bit of a gamble and decided to try to do the rest of the race on just two stints of medium tyres,” he said.
This gamble to run the medium tyre meant Ericsson relied on track position, tyre conservation and his defending skills rather than fast laps and aggressive racecraft.
It also meant the 25-year-old ran the slowest tyres for nearly all of the race and ultimately the gamble didn’t pay off.
“It felt like we didn’t really have the pace we hoped for on the mediums. We have to analyse everything and see if we could have done something different strategy-wise. In our situation, you sometimes need to try to take a chance and it could have worked out,” he explained.
Sauber has been faced with numerous financial hurdles so far this season and as the field heads to Russia, Ericsson’s hopes for a radically improved C35 remain unlikely.
“I felt like the driving was good, but we still need to find some more performance in the car,” the Swedish driver said.
The field now heads to Russia, a track which saw Sauber score eight points at last season courtesy of a sixth place finish for Felipe Nasr.
