Marcus Ericsson says scoring his first points “was a big goal achieved” as he finished eighth in the Australian Grand Prix.

Having started outside the top ten, Ericsson completed a three-stop strategy and overtook Carlos Sainz Jr late in the race to take eighth, three places behind team-mate Felipe Nasr. While pleased to get his first career points having driven for Caterham last year, Ericsson says being able to bounce back from a tough weekend with a strong race performance was the biggest positive for him.

“It was a big goal achieved so I’m really happy, of course,” Ericsson said.

“I’m not 100% happy with how [the weekend] went. It was a difficult weekend but also I was a bit unlucky with practice two; I only did ten laps and then my suspension broke, then we had brake issues on Saturday in FP3.

“So that held me back quite a lot in qualifying yesterday so I was not too happy with that going out in Q1, but I think I made up for that with a strong race and some good moves on Carlos.

“I think overall we have to be happy, and to have both cars in the points as well is a great start to the season.”

Click here for the full gallery from the Australian Grand Prix

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

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.

Recent Posts

Austrian GP: Saturday's action in pictures

F1 fans near and far were treated to a thrilling qualifying at the Austrian GP,…

4 hours ago

Hamilton hopes Ferrari can ambush Russell into Turn 1 in Austria

Lewis Hamilton believes that Ferrari’s best chance of disrupting Mercedes in Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix…

4 hours ago

Russell: ‘Unbelievable’ Austrian GP pole lap came out of nowhere

George Russell was not about to let a cloud of controversy hang over his Austrian…

5 hours ago

Verstappen says final flyer good enough for P3 before Turn 9 crash

Max Verstappen was left staring at what might have been after a dramatic final qualifying…

6 hours ago

Austria GP: Russell stuns Ferrari with last gasp pole amid yellow flags

George Russell will start the Austrian Grand Prix from pole position after surviving a post-session…

7 hours ago

Austrian Grand Prix - Qualifying results

Full results from qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix at Spielberg, round 8 of the…

7 hours ago