Ericsson: 'Positive' day for Sauber

Despite ending Friday practice in the gravel trap, Sauber's Marcus Ericsson rated his first day back at work as 'positive'.

Ericsson went off at turn 6 to bring out the yellow flags at the end of the second free practice session in Melbourne. That brought a slightly premature end to the day's activity, but Ericsson was still happy with what he'd achieved.

"Overall it’s been a positive day for us," he insisted.

"We managed to run a good number of laps on different tyre compounds. Overall it’s been a nice start into the weekend."

Ericsson said that the team had already made significant progress compared to pre-season testing in Spain earlier this month.

"During testing in Barcelona we were not completely happy with the balance of the car," he said. "After analysing all the data, we have made a step forward as I feel more comfortable in the car here in Melbourne."

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His new team mate Pascal Wehrlein was feeling slightly less happy with how things had gone at Albert Park."

“I am not fully satisfied with my first practice sessions today," Wehrlein admitted. "We are still working on finding a suitable set-up for the car.

"But it was positive that we have gathered some good data in both practice sessions," he added, echoing Ericsson's sentiments.

"Now we need to focus on tomorrow in order to reach further improvements."

GALLERY: all the pics from Friday's action

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.