Despite Ericsson’s crash, promising prospects for the rest of the weekend at Sauber
The Swiss team comes out confident from the two Free Practice sessions of the Belgian Grand Prix. Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr both made it into the Top 10. However, the Swedish driver had a scare when he lost control of his car at Pouhon in the final minutes of the second free practice session.

In the wake of the improvements made to the Ferrari engine, Sauber seems to have regained momentum this Friday on the Spa-Francorchamps track. These practice sessions were positive in terms of pure speed. After a rather mediocre Hungarian Grand Prix in this area (editor’s note: despite the point from the 10th place obtained by Marcus Ericsson, both cars were eliminated in Q1), Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr ranked eighth and ninth respectively during the runs on soft tires.
« We tried different settings on the car during the first free practice session. » Ericsson indicated at the end of the day. « Then we continued this work during the second session, alternating short and long stints with the two types of tires offered. I was particularly satisfied with the balance of my car on soft tires. »
However, the training program was disrupted by the mistake of the former Caterham driver, who climbed too insistently on the kerb in the fast sequence of Pouhon. He couldn’t do anything to regain control of his car. Unfortunately, I touched the outside of the kerb in Pouhon at the end of the session: the car slid and I hit the wall.
Fortunately emerged unscathed, the Swede wishes to apologize to the team for this incident. « It cost us a lot of extra work time. It’s racing, but it’s obviously very frustrating. Before this accident, it was still a good day for us: everything we worked on was very positive. »
Same tune on the other side of the garage with Felipe Nasr: « I had two good sessions today. I am satisfied with the overall balance of the car, which gives us an interesting base to work on for the weekend. Temperatures increased very quickly this morning, which helped us in our improvements. » The Brazilian driver even states that we have not yet seen the fullness of his abilities: « I still have room for improvement with my soft tires! I got stuck in traffic in my flying lap. It’s a good start to the weekend, but we still have a lot of work ahead of us. »
If this good foundation is confirmed during tomorrow afternoon’s Qualifying, Sauber could reasonably aim for points throughout the 44 laps of the Grand Prix.