Pascal Wehrlein could not match his highs of the Red Bull Ring during qualifying for the British Grand Prix after his Manor Racing team once again encountered the tyre temperature issues that have affected their season.
The German driver was out-qualified by team-mate Rio Haryanto for a fifth time in 2016 at Silverstone, and admitted post-session that the team are not in a position to replicate their strong performance from Austria, and that they would need the help from the unpredictable British weather to move into points contention.
“We’ve been struggling with tyre temperature here again and we tried many different things with the set-up to try to progress,” said Wehrlein. “I just wanted us to improve step by step but we didn’t manage to find a solution unfortunately.
“In dry conditions, I’m afraid we don’t have the car to do what we did in Austria. Our long run pace is a little better and then there’s the weather forecast, which is quite unpredictable.
“Of course, we hope for crazy weather to work in our favour, because what last weekend showed is that we can make the best of situations. I’m looking forward to it, as always, and I’ll do my best for the team’s home crowd. I’m expecting a challenging day though.”
