Ericsson: Error passing Bottas was reason for crash

Sauber driver Marcus Ericsson claims his crash in Q1 was down to misjudgement after passing Valtteri Bottas.

Bottas was driving a slow lap before Ericsson went round his Mercedes in the Turn 7 left-hander.

Ericsson did confirm that Bottas had nothing to do with the crash as he was well out of the way, the disturbance to the airflow cost the Swede crucial downforce and made him collide with the barriers.

"I just lost the front end," Ericsson answered when asked by Autosport about the crash. "I knew there was a car up there but it was well on the inside so I thought it was going to be fine, but I looked at the video afterwards and I think it's enough to disturb the car.

"You can see on the data that I had quite a bit more understeer on that lap compared to the previous lap. It's not an excuse, I obviously went too fast for the grip available, but it was a shame."

Ericsson accepted that the collision was his fault with the Sauber man not accounting for the loss of grip caused by the turbulence.

"The cars are so sensitive to wind, if you get a change of wind you can lose quite a bit of grip," Ericsson said. "I miscalculated a bit how much I would lose and then I ran a bit wide.

"It's the wrong place to run wide because if you put one wheel off, it's just game over."