Marcus Ericsson praised his Sauber F1 Team mechanics for changing the Ferrari engine on his C35 in between final practice and qualifying for the Brazilian Grand Prix.
The Swede went into the session on the back foot after struggles during second practice on Friday and then with only an installation lap on Saturday morning before the engine issue was discovered, and ultimately he found himself twenty-first fastest in qualifying, although he will start twentieth due to a penalty for Esteban Ocon.
Ericsson felt the qualifying at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace went as expected, but despite his distinct lack of running this weekend, was still able to out-qualify team-mate Felipe Nasr.
“First of all, I am very thankful that my car crew managed to change the engine between FP3 and qualifying,” said Ericsson. “They did an extremely good job in between the two sessions, having a very limited amount of time.
“Qualifying itself was rather difficult. Yesterday we had issues during my stints, so I could not do as many laps as we wanted in FP2. Because of the engine problem in FP3, I could not run a proper lap. We were on the back foot going into qualifying. With all that in mind, we could not have expected much more.”
