Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team driver Marcus Ericsson said that whilst it’s ‘disappointing’ to have missed out on getting into the second qualifying session for the Bahrain Grand Prix, it’s encouraging to see the team making progress.
Ericsson qualified in seventeenth place, beating both Williams Martini Racing drivers, as well as team-mate Charles Leclerc. The Swedish driver’s nearly four-tenth of a second gap to eighteenth-placed Sergey Sirotkin is is a sign that the team is making progress, he says, though it’s also a missed opportunity, as Ericsson felt he could have made it into the second qualifying session for the first time since the 2017 Austrian Grand Prix.
“Today we decided with the team to focus more on the race preparation and FP3 was a really good session; we were really in the fight here,” said Ericsson. “In qualifying as well, we were fighting in the midfield.
“Unfortunately, we weren’t able to make that extra step up towards the end of Q1 as our competitors did. It’s a bit disappointing to be out in Q1 because it felt like Q2 may have been possible – but at the end, it feels good to see that we are making progress.
“We worked a lot on race set-up and I am expecting us to be fighting in the midfield during the race tomorrow, so let’s see what is possible.”
