Daniel Ricciardo was happy with eleventh on the grid for the German Grand Prix despite missing Q3 by six hundredths of a second. The Australian achieved his best qualifying result since Bahrain in changeable conditions and is now targeting a return to point-scoring form, even if the weather stays dry.
“I am satisfied with that performance. Eleventh is quite good for us, on the edge of Q3. Of course, I'm a little bit disappointed that I missed out on the top ten, but in general this result puts us in a good position for tomorrow and hopefully we can get our nose into the points, even if the race is dry as predicted. As for my quick lap, I actually improved during the run, because even though I was on Intermediates, I seemed to find more grip when there was more water on the track. For that reason, my best lap came right at the end and it was a case of changing lines through some corners from lap to lap as you tried to work out which lines worked best in the conditions. It was a challenging session and I had fun out there this afternoon.”
Toro Rosso teammate Jean-Eric Vergne was knocked out in Q1 for the sixth time this season but with two drivers ahead of him receiving grid penalties, the Frenchman will start sixteenth. Vergne is still hopeful of racing the men ahead of him though as he believes the team's race pace has improved.
“Only two tenths between me and P13 in Q1 which is very close and in fact I think I lost two tenths in the final corner, although apart from that, I feel my lap was quite good. I am disappointed that the rain arrived just a bit too late for me. We went out immediately on the Option as we expected rain to fall in Q1 itself. I am still hopeful of having a good race tomorrow as we seem a bit more competitive in the dry than we were two weeks ago. With the rain affecting several sessions, we have not done as much running on the dry tyres as usual and seeing how they behave will be an interesting factor tomorrow.”
