Marcus Ericsson believes any chance of scoring points in the Bahrain Grand Prix was hampered by a lack of power early in the race.

Sauber looked uncompetitive during qualifying as both cars dropped out in Q1 behind Pascal Wehrlein's Manor, but Ericsson produced a strong drive to 12th place. However, on the opening lap Ericsson lost positions and finished the lap in 17th place despite retirements and collisions, with the Swede reporting a loss of power early on.

“The race was fun with a lot of fights," Ericsson said. "The start was a bit unfortunate. I had a lack of power during the first lap, so I dropped down some positions. Therefore, I was then stuck behind some competitors. Once I got by them, I had quite a strong race."

While Ericsson also felt he missed out on scoring points because of some late fuel saving, he feels 12th place represented the best result Sauber could achieve in Bahrain.

"Unfortunately, during the last stint, when I was running in the points, we had to save fuel. It was really difficult to defend my position.

"Overall, it’s been a decent weekend on which we maximised our current package. Now we need to push hard to get our car more competitive.”

Bahrain Grand Prix - Quotes of the weekend

DRIVER RATINGS: Bahrain Grand Prix

GALLERY: Sakhir podium

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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.

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