Pascal Wehrlein was content with his qualifying efforts at the Hockenheimring on Saturday, as the Manor Racing driver came within a tenth of a second of a second visit to Q2 in 2016.
The German ultimately was denied and qualified eighteenth, although the German will move up one spot on the grid when Romain Grosjean takes his grid penalty for a gearbox change.
Wehrlein admitted that Renault appear to be too strong for the team, but was happy to get ahead of both Sauber’s and a Toro Rosso, and is looking to move forward at the start on Sunday like he has done on numerous occasions in 2016.
“We were very close to Q2 today – just 0.15s – but I’m very happy with our qualifying because we managed to stay in front of Sauber, and also a Toro Rosso, which is positive,” said Wehrlein. “The team did a really good job, so my thanks to everyone for that.
“At the moment Renault seem quite strong and especially in the last sector. We’re still lacking a bit of downforce, so we couldn’t keep up today; we were losing half a second to them in that sector. But the most important thing is that we’re in front of Sauber, so I can’t be unhappy.
“We’ve continued improving through the weekend, so I hope we can do an even better job in the race tomorrow. We can do something from P18 and of course I’ll be trying to get another special start, to make up some places off the line. I can’t wait!”
