Marcus Ericsson misses out on points for Sauber

Marcus Ericsson had a big smile when he joined the journalists after the Mexican Grand Prix. Indeed, the Swede simply felt that he had just driven the best race of his F1 career, finishing in 11th place.

Yet, she almost stopped right after the first turn, following a collision with Pascal Wehrlein’s Manor: « The collision at the start was unfortunate. To be honest, I thought it was the end of the race after being hit. My front wing and also a deflector were damaged. This compromised my lap times. I then stopped at the pits to change my front wing. We were also able to observe, thanks to the data, that the floor was also damaged. »

However, the Sauber driver did not give up and managed to display a pace in line with the competition. More importantly, this premature stop allowed him to switch immediately to medium tires. He was then able to complete 69 laps on the same set of tires and therefore did not have to stop again.

He was able to climb up to 11th place for a good part of the race, without ever being able to make it into the top 10, which would mean a valuable point for the fight in the Constructors’ Championship. The satisfaction is even greater because this 11th place was obtained fairly, without any major retirements during the race: « We kept moving forward and I managed to keep up the pace, so our speed was good. Today we were very close to the points, but alas it was not enough. We, as a team, are taking away a lot of positives this weekend. It shows once again that we are moving in the right direction. »

On the other hand, the race was more complicated for Felipe Nasr, once again outperformed by his teammate. He opted for an offset strategy, with medium tires right from the start of the race. But the intervention of the safety car questioned this strategy: Having started the race on medium tires, I was the only driver on the starting grid to opt for an aggressive strategy. The first lap went rather well, I managed to gain a few positions, including those of some drivers who were on soft tires. I think I was unlucky with the appearance of the safety car, it pushed us all to the back of the field. This compromised my strategy, but that’s how a race goes sometimes.

The battle with Manor is far from over and will continue until Abu Dhabi.