Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson was left annoyed after a strange crash in FP1 of the 2018 Formula 1’s French GP which forced him to miss the whole of FP2 as a result.
The dramatic looking incident took place right at the dying moments of FP1 when Ericsson lost control and slid across the run-off as his right rear hit the barrier hard which resulted in a huge fire.
The marshals were quick to the scene to douse the flames as the Swede unaware of the fire initially, did manage to escape unscathed. The chassis was damaged in the fire with the team deciding to send it back to Switzerland for the repair work.
This forced Ericsson to sit out of the second session as the team worked on to build a new chassis for the Swede to complete the rest of the weekend. He finished 0.079s behind teammate Charles Leclerc in FP1 despite his Turn 11 crash.
Having had a difficult last few rounds, Ericsson decided not to follow Leclerc’s set-up and do his own way so as to improve his performance – it started to work along with the upgrades the team brought for the French GP.
“That’s the annoying thing [to miss on FP2],” said Ericsson. “Up until the accident, I had a really good FP1. We have done some quite big changes on the set-up side and settings, going back a bit more to where we were at the beginning of the year, and it seemed to make a difference.
“I felt really comfortable so it’s extremely disappointing to end the session like that. As we were starting to feel more and more comfortable on track. The wind was affecting the balance but I was coping with it when I suddenly lost the rear of my car entering T11 and crashed into the barriers.
“Unfortunately, the incident has compromised our weekend quite a bit. We lost precious time and the mechanics have a lot of work ahead to change the chassis. I look forward to having a more positive day tomorrow,” he added.
Upon analysis, Ericsson mentioned that the team couldn’t find any real trouble in the data for the car to slide in that manner and hit the barrier at such speed other than the wind direction which changed course on that particular lap.
