13/07/2019
NEWS STORY
Renault F1 Team qualified inside the top ten for tomorrow's Rolex British Grand Prix with Daniel Ricciardo seventh and Nico Hulkenberg tenth at Silverstone on Saturday.
Under cloudy and cool conditions, both drivers entered qualifying on the back of a promising Free Practice 3 with Nico eighth and Daniel ninth.
Both drivers progressed through Q1 and on their second runs in Q2 cruised into the top-ten shootout for the third double Q3 appearance this season.
On their opening effort on scrubbed Soft tyres, Daniel was marginally quicker than Nico with both drivers improving again on their final run on new tyres with Daniel edging Nico by two tenths.
Nico Hulkenberg: "It's positive to be back in Q3, but we can't be entirely happy as tenth isn't an ideal starting spot. I couldn't find the balance between front and rear all weekend and that continued in qualifying. You need confidence in the car here and that wasn't all there today. I can't complain too much, it's an improvement since the last round. Tomorrow we need to score well, but we know it will be a fight. We'll do our best to come away with as many points as we can."
Daniel Ricciardo: "Today is a really good recovery, especially after the last round. It shows we've done a lot of work, discovered a bit more from the car and then executed a good qualifying. I'm really happy with today. Having both cars in Q3 was our objective, we've achieved that, and seventh is probably the best we can reach at the moment. Tomorrow we need to take some points off our rivals and we're in prime position to do that. We'll try and stay up there and put some smiles back on the team. Our car looked good on long runs so we'll be targeting a double-points finish tomorrow."
Alan Permane, Sporting Director: "It's good to be back in Q3 where this car and this team belong after a couple of tough weekends. The session went completely to plan. Both drivers did a good job and Nico was a little bit unlucky at the end to miss out on a couple of places for less than two tenths. I think that we are in very good shape for tomorrow. The ambition as always for the race is to move up the order as much as we can and obviously for Daniel that will be tricky sitting behind the top six cars but you never know. We will do all we can and Nico will certainly target getting past Albon and Norris. The weather looks stable for Sunday and hopefully it will be a straightforward race."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Silverstone, here.