Marcus Ericsson believes the bumpy nature of Silverstone’s resurfaced track contributed to his high-speed crash at Formula 1’s British Grand Prix.
Ericsson was chasing Force India’s Sergio Perez for 13th position when he lost the rear end of his Sauber C37 entering Abbey and hit the barriers.
The FIA extended the DRS zone to encompass Abbey and Farm curves and the majority of teams were unable to keep the wing flap open through those turns – including Sauber.
On that lap Ericsson’s DRS flap did not close as he entered the corner and the Swede pinpointed that as the reason for his accident.
“I was behind Checo, and I think when you’re racing and you have this DRS zone you want to be as late as possible to switch it off and switch it on as early as possible to stay as close as possible,” he said.
“I have the [DRS] button behind my steering wheel and I think, it’s quite bumpy on entry and you go on the kerb, and I think I slipped and didn’t hit it.
“I think maybe on tracks like this we need to see if maybe we can have a bit of bigger button, or something, see what we can do so it doesn’t happen again.
“Basically I turned in with the DRS open and then you’re a passenger as the car just turns, that was the reason why it happened.
“We thought it was not possible [to use DRS] and now I’ve tried and it didn’t turn out so good.”
Ericsson believes he would have been able to climb inside the top 10 without the accident.
“I think points was on the cards with a strong second half,” he said.
“At that point I was just behind Checo and Pierre [Gasly] was right ahead. They were there and I felt at that point really strong and had fresher tyres than both of them.
“Okay it’s difficult to overtake [at Silverstone] so who knows, but I think I would have been at least to fight for the last point position. It’s a bit disappointing.”
