Marcus Ericsson had a difficult Hungarian Grand Prix, having been out-qualified by Williams Martini Racing’s reserve driver Paul di Resta on Saturday and being the last of the finishers on Sunday.
Di Resta, who plies his trade in the DTM Series and is current reserve driver for Williams, stepped into a current F1 car for the first time in qualifying after Felipe Massa withdrew due to illness, and despite having never driven the the FW40 before, he was able to set a time over one tenth of a second faster than Sauber F1 Team driver Ericsson.
Whilst Ericsson was able to get ahead of di Resta during the race, retirements for competitors meant he was the last man to take the flag, and the Swede, who had been looking forward to the race hopeful that an updated aerodynamic package would give them the pace necessary to fight in the midfield, was disappointed that the update just wasn’t enough.
“It was a difficult race. We did not have the pace that we hoped, and were just not able to fight the competitors in front of us,” said Ericcson.
“It is disappointing, because we expected to make a bigger step with the first parts of the aerodynamics update we brought with us. After the summer break, we should be able to make another step forward.”
