Marcus Ericsson could only finish seventeenth during the European Grand Prix at the Baku Street Circuit after suffering with higher tyre degradation than he was expecting.
The Sauber F1 Team driver saw his record of finishing ahead of team-mate Felipe Nasr in every race so far in 2016 end as a result, with the Swede bemoaning the time it took to get the proper heat into the Pirelli tyres before he was able to show his true pace.
“It was a disappointing race for me,” said Ericsson. “Straight from the start the tyre behaviour was different from what we expected. We calculated that they would last more laps than they actually did.
“On the first stint my soft tyres were dropping off a lot, so we had to switch our planned one stop strategy to a two stopper. Overall, I could not get the tyres to work properly, so my pace was not good enough.
“The only time I got a better feeling and the tyres to work was towards the end of the race, because of the lower temperatures.”
