Ericsson apologises for Nasr collision

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Marcus Ericsson has apologised for the collision with Felipe Nasr that saw both Sauber drivers retire from the Monaco Grand Prix.

Nasr had been ordered to let the faster Ericsson through, with Sauber telling the Brazilian who would be given the place back if his team-mate failed to make any further progress. However, with Nasr ignoring the order, Ericsson eventually tried a lunge in to Rascasse and the pair collided.

With team principal Monisha Kaltenborn planning to speak to the drivers individually to clear the air, when asked if he feels the matter needs discussing internally Ericsson replied: "Of course, yes. 100%.

"I think for the whole team it is very disappointing and I apologise from my side to the whole team for what happened. Of course we need to sit down and make sure we clear the air so we can make sure we move forward in Montreal and go there and fight together as a team to score good positions.

“I think in Formula 1 team-mates is always a tough situation. It’s always a high competition, but of course it should not be [ending in a collision]. So we need to sit down and discuss things and clear the air and make sure it never happens again.”

Explaining his part in the collision, Ericsson said he was trying to repeat an attempted move on Valtteri Bottas from earlier in the race.

“I was catching him at three or four seconds per lap, got stuck behind and called for the team what to do. They told me they were going to tell him to swap positions and they said to me for seven or eight laps that they were telling him and that didn't happen so after seven or eight laps I said to the team ‘we are losing too much time here’.

"We had so much pace, at least two seconds a lap more pace in the car that we cannot use so I will have to try and make a move myself.

"I got the green light from my engineer to try and make a move and I tried in that corner to overtake Bottas earlier in the race and I almost got him and it was all fine. I thought it was a good place because I saw [Nasr] was struggling a lot in the last sector.

"So I went for the move and I thought in the worst case I would stay in position and have to drop back behind but obviously the end result was not the same as with Bottas.”

However, Ericsson made it clear he felt the incident was avoidable if Nasr had done as the team had asked.

“I don’t want to complain about him or anyone else, but I think it could have been avoided if orders were followed.”

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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.