Ericsson: Sauber ‘better than we expected’

Marcus Ericsson says Sauber has enjoyed a more encouraging pre-season than it was expecting after his penultimate day in the C34.

Sauber was in the top two throughout the first test and has enjoyed consistent running throughout pre-season testing so far. With Ericsson completing the most mileage of any driver on the opening day of the final test he says the way the winter has gone has slightly exceeded the team’s expectations.

“It’s positive,” Ericsson said. “2014 was a tough year for everyone here in Sauber. This pre-season has been promising. As always in F1 testing you never know until you get to Melbourne but compared to our own expectations with this new car and the power unit from Ferrari we are good, we are maybe even a bit better than we expected.

“So that’s really positive. Also we haven’t had that many issues with the car in testing. We had a little bit last week but apart from that we have been running a lot of laps and done a lot of the programmes which we’ve had planned. So overall I think everyone in the team is positive and really enthusiastic to start the season and see where in the races where we’re at.”

Having completed a race simulation on Thursday - including a run of five consecutive laps within 0.1s on medium tyres - Ericsson says he has been pleased to find consistency both from the car and himself.

“I was very happy with my race simulation. First of all the car was behaving consistently and I got confidence from it and new what to expect, but also I was happy because I was able to be really, really consistent across the laps. Also the drop-off was not that big either so I think it was a good race sim.”

Click here for the gallery from day one of the final test