Marcus Ericsson finished down in sixteenth place at the 2016 Chinese Grand Prix, but the Swede felt it was a strong race for him even though the strategy choices from the team did not pay off.
“I think it was a decent race, I made a good start, and had a good first lap,” said Ericsson. “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. But 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. Apart from that, I think it was a strong race, with no mistakes from my side.
“I felt like the driving was good, but we still need to find some more performance in the car.”
Team-mate Felipe Nasr meanwhile is still struggling to get to grips with the C35, and it was a difficult day for the Brazilian after a coming together with the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton at the start of the race, saw the Sauber driver sustain a puncture and have to pit on the very first lap, putting him on the back foot from there on in.
“It was a difficult race for me this weekend, especially as it was compromised after the start at turn 1,” revealed Nasr. “I got hit, which resulted in my front right tyre having a puncture and in a nose change. That cost me a lot of time in the race, because I couldn’t recover the lap I lost in the safety car period. So this meant, I had a lot to catch up in the race.
“Anyway, I still feel that we have a lot to do in the car to bring back the pace, because I am still struggling with the same issues that I’ve been having in the last couple of events. I have confidence in the team that we can get the performance back.”
