“I'm happy to be through to the top ten after problems at the last two grands prix,” the 37-year-old admitted. “We used all our option tyres to get there, though – two sets in Q1 and two sets in Q2 – as I didn't want to take any risks. As a result, we only had primes left at the end. We only did one run in Q3 as we wanted to save fuel, so the car was very heavy.”
Team principal Christian Horner was understandably pleased with the outcome, praising ‘a strong team performance' as the squad bids to build on its current sixth position in the constructors' world championship chase, four points shy of
Williams in fourth and just a sole marker adrift of fifth-placed
Toyota.
“A strong team performance in this morning's practice was converted into solid grid positions this afternoon for tomorrow's race,” the 34-year-old summarised. “Mark used his head in the final session and aborted a lap he wasn't entirely happy with, which meant he saved a lap of fuel. He then did an excellent lap and extracted everything from the car on option tyres to get P6.
“David did an excellent job to get comfortably through to Q3. As he had no soft tyres left for his final run, we were always adopting a strategic game with him. It was a strong team performance.”
“We are very pleased with today's result,” concurred engine supplier
Renault's principal track support engineer Fabrice Lom. “To have both cars in the top ten is what we have been aiming for and now we have it. The Q2 times of both drivers were very good. Sixth and tenth is a good result for us; now let's see what we can do with that tomorrow.”
