21/06/2014
NEWS STORY
Daniil Kvyat: "This was my best qualifying result so far this season and I'm satisfied with the work the team has done all weekend. We managed to put all the things together like a puzzle and we made a significant step forward from yesterday to today. It was a shame that because of the yellow flags in Turn 2, we couldn't exploit the full potential of the car. But still, P7 is a good starting position. I really enjoy this circuit and I hope we can have a strong race in front of all the Red Bull family."
Jean-Eric Vergne: "We have struggled with the set up all day and I had to fight against a pretty consistent oversteer, which makes it difficult to put in the perfect lap and get into Q3. It's a real pity as the team has done a really good job and the car has certainly improved with all the new parts that we brought here for this race. This is a one time off when qualifying was bad but the race is still to come, the car is good and I'll do my best to make it up tomorrow what I have lost today."
James Key (Technical Director): "We introduced a very big aero package here this weekend and the good news is that it's working pretty well and I think it's a good platform for going forward. As for today, we are obviously very happy to get Daniil into Q3 and for him to finish in seventh place, which is certainly a very good position to start the race. But it's been a bit of a mixed session. I think JEV hasn't really been a hundred percent happy with the car all day. He's had some balance problem which we've been working on hard. In Qualifying the situation looked a bit better but it's so tight here, it's such a short lap that only a few tenths make the difference and his last lap in Q2 was not quite enough for Q3. However, he was happy with the car on the long run pace on Friday so we are definitively hopeful for tomorrow. For Daniil, it was a fantastic qualifying session and he was competitive all day. Unfortunately he was a victim of a yellow flag with a Mercedes in Q3, so he had to back off a bit and he lost probably three or four tenths. I think he could have done even better but with a seventh position on the grid we can't complain at all. The team is happy for him, for doing such a good job. Tomorrow is what counts and we are looking forward to it."
Ricardo Penteado (Renault Sport F1 track support leader): "Once again we learnt a lot from FP3 but we could not have done better during qualifying unfortunately. We have moved forward on the energy management and Daniil showed that the new package was working well - in fact his last lap could have been faster. Unfortunately JEV was not confident in the car but the race tomorrow will hopefully provide chances to recover positions."
Check out our Saturday gallery, here.