30/06/2018
NEWS STORY
The fifth row of the grid for tomorrow's Eyetime Grosser Preis von Osterreich will be yellow and black after Renault Sport Formula One Team qualified with both drivers in the top ten for the sixth time this season.
Carlos Sainz set the ninth-fastest lap, a 1min 04.725secs, and Nico Hulkenberg the tenth-quickest time under cloudy skies at the Red Bull Ring.
Nico Hulkenberg: "We did well to get into the top ten today. I'm not so happy with qualifying, so I'm hoping for better in the race tomorrow. It's a short track here, and if you don't have a good balance with the car it's difficult to extract all the pace over one lap. We'll be aiming to look after the tyres tomorrow, as 71 laps is going to be pretty gruelling with so many corners. There's a lot of energy going through the rubber, so we need to be smart during the race."
Carlos Sainz: "Today we managed to overcome our main limitations from yesterday and the car felt better. We had a strong qualifying and I'm happy to be P9 in the end, it was the best result possible today. We'll be aiming to go forwards at the start tomorrow and hopefully we'll have extra race pace to fight for good points. Overtaking is always difficult here, but there are three DRS zones, so let's see what that brings."
How was qualifying for the team?
Alan Permane, Sporting Director: The build-up to qualifying involved quite a bit of hard work to get the car set-up working for both drivers, so it's good to see the fruits of that labour with both cars qualifying where we need to be for tomorrow's race. We've made good progress from yesterday.
What are likely to be the challenges tomorrow?
AP: It's a tough track to race here. There are a lot of laps to complete, and it's punishing on the car, especially on the brakes. We've seen how important it is to stay off certain kerbs, so we'll be looking for a strong, clean race where hopefully we can harness the good long run pace we saw yesterday. Anything could happen tomorrow.
Check out our Saturday gallery from Spielberg, here.