Sauber disappointed to end run of Q2 appearances

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The Sauber team admitted that it was disappointed not to get either of its cars through to Q2 this week.

It's the first time this season that the team has failed to be involved in the second round of qualifying. Marcus Ericsson will start the Russian Grand Prix from 19th place, with his team mate Pascal Wehrlein once place ahead.

"A disappointing result," conceded Ericsson. He said that they had made progress in Saturday's final practice, only to then be hit with a technical issue.

"Unfortunately we identified a power unit issue in FP3, and we were not able to fully fix it for qualifying," he explained.

"I am sure we will sort this out for tomorrow.

"On top of that I got yellow flags on my last lap in Q1," he added. "We could have been close to Q2 today without having these issues, but that’s how racing goes sometimes.

"However, I'm still positive as we are moving in the right direction."

Vettel and Raikkonen lock out Sochi front row

Ericsson's team mate was actually one of the causes for that late flurry of yellow flags at the end of Q1. Wehrlein spun in the closing seconds of the first round, but was then able to get back underway.

"I made a mistake on my last lap in qualifying, which definitely cost time," Wehrlein said afterwards.

"Overall I am having difficulties with the balance of the car," he continued. "Our top speed on the straights is not good enough. The tyres behave differently compared to Bahrain.

"I cannot be satisfied with this result," he added. "Nevertheless, we will do our best for tomorrow’s race."

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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.