Marcus Ericsson says he was lifted by his one-lap progress at the Monaco Grand Prix, even if it was not reflected in his final result.
Ericsson was out-qualified at the preceding two Grands Prix by Sauber team-mate Charles Leclerc, and spoke in the aftermath of the Spanish event of his desire to improve on his one-lap performance.
Leclerc again made Q2 for Sauber in Monaco while Ericsson was eliminated in the first segment of qualifying, faster than only Lance Stroll and Kevin Magnussen.
But Ericsson pointed to mitigating factors and expressed encouragement at the progress he and Sauber was able to make with the feel of the C37 on a qualifying run.
“It’s been my problem the last few weekends, qualifying, for sure,” said Ericsson.
“That’s where Charles has made a difference, our race pace has been quite similar but he’s just been able to have the edge in qualifying.
“I worked a lot with the engineers and everything to understand it for this weekend [in Monaco] and I think to be fair we took some good steps this weekend but we didn’t manage to show it on paper.
“Both in FP2 on the qualifying run we had an engine problem that meant my Hypersoft run was not possible to make, couldn’t fit a representative lap there, FP3 was on a really good lap, I think a tenth quicker than Charles’ best lap then had the red flag.
“Then in qualifying we were following each other in the first run, within the same tenth, and then on the second run he got a really good first lap and I didn’t hook up first one and on the second one was the yellow flag.
“So I felt like I really made some good progress this weekend, on paper it didn’t look like it, but for myself and my engineers it felt like we made a good step there, in [terms of] tyre management and for me as a driver to get the balance a bit more the way I want it to push it in that one lap performance.”
Ericsson went on to finish the Monaco Grand Prix in 11th position.
