Marcus Ericsson believes his performance at the Italian Grand Prix was his “best race in F1 so far” despite losing a position at the final corner.
The Sauber driver was running close behind Nico Hulkenberg for the majority of the race, with the two battling over seventh position at Monza. On the final lap, Ericsson made a slight mistake out of Ascari and Daniel Ricciardo snatched eighth from him at the exit of Parabolica but the Swede told F1i he is focusing on the positives of the weekend.
“I think it was my best race in F1 so far with a bittersweet ending to it of course, losing a position on the last lap at the last corner,” Ericsson said. “That’s never fun, it’s very frustrating, but now when it’s been a while after the race, looking at the big picture I’m very happy with my performance.”
And Ericsson says Sauber has made a clear step forward in recent races since receiving an updated Ferrari power unit, with the team proving even more competitive than he expected.
“In Monza I didn’t expect us to be on a level where we could actually fight the Force Indias for the whole race and I actually think we were quicker at parts of the race as well. But especially the Force India in a straight line is very strong, so even though I was in the DRS a lot, I couldn’t really get a run on [Hulkenberg]. I needed him to do a small mistake but he’s an experienced guy and he didn’t really make any mistakes.
“So it was a bit frustrating to not get past because I think if I got past I could have pulled away a little bit from him. But overall we need to look at the big picture, we’ve scored points again, we’ve actually been fighting the Force India for the whole race and that for sure is big progress compared to where we’ve been a couple of races back.”
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