08/08/2020
NEWS STORY
Nico Hulkenberg: "It's been a crazy week and after the highs and lows of my comeback last week, P3 on the grid for tomorrow is a nice highlight! Last week definitely helped me feel more prepared for this weekend, but qualifying was still a real challenge today. In Q2, I made life hard for myself a little bit and I thought I might have damaged the car. But once we got through to Q3, it was about getting my head down, giving it full beans, and giving my all for the lap time. I have a big smile on my face, but it's only Saturday and it's tomorrow that really matters. It's going to be a challenge, because I haven't been through the motions of a race start and going wheel-to-wheel for a while now, and I'm still learning the car. But I'll give everything I've got to make sure we get a strong result. We'll enjoy the qualifying result, but all focus is on the race now."
Lance Stroll: "It's a great day for the team to get both cars into Q3 and Nico did an outstanding job to qualify in P3. He's been solid all weekend so far and the team's done a great job to get him comfortable and to have both cars showing pace. For myself, I didn't quite get it all together today. We were working on some things during qualifying and I wasn't quite able to find the right balance - I had a little instability at the rear of the car. I wasn't quite able to get a clean lap in either, which didn't help. It's small margins and it's a shame not to be starting higher up the grid, but it's a good starting point, and it's all to play for tomorrow. We know there are areas where we can make improvements, but Nico's shown just how much pace the car has, so that's a big positive. The strategy could play a key part in the race tomorrow, so we'll go away and make sure we're ready to maximise everything tomorrow for a strong result."
Otmar Szafnauer, CEO & Team Principal: "Nico and Lance did a great job today to get both cars into Q3. It gives us a real platform to fight for good points in tomorrow's race. We’ve made a decent step in performance through Friday and into qualifying, so all credit to the team and our drivers. Nico was able to find a few more tenths to get P3, and it was small margins that meant Lance took P6. Nico's performance is impressive considering he had been out of a Formula 1 car for over eight months until last weekend, and his Q3 effort was a special lap. Both our drivers have underlined the potential of the car this weekend. The margins are very small between several teams, so it will be a challenge tomorrow, but if we manage the race well, we're in with a chance of a great result."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Silverstone, here.