Nico Hülkenberg admitted to being satisfied with his qualifying effort for the Austrian Grand Prix after the Renault Sport Formula 1 Team racer secured eleventh place on the grid.
The German missed out on advancing to the top ten shoot-out by just 0.047 seconds, but Hülkenberg will have a free choice of starting tyre, which he hopes will give him the opportunity to move forward on race day.
“I’m satisfied with eleventh place, it’s a good effort,” said Hülkenberg. “I put in a sweet lap at the end of Q2 and it was equally good fun to look for the last few thousands of a second.
“Tomorrow will be a tough race but we will get a free choice of start tyres and that’s a good position. It was a good job from the team.”
Team-mate Jolyon Palmer failed to advance out of the first phase of qualifying, missing out by less than a tenth of a second, and he was disappointed not to have been able to get a better lap in.
The Briton, who has yet to break into the points in the opening eight races of the year, still believes that from sixteenth on the grid he can move forward and fight for that elusive first top ten finish of 2017.
“I knew qualifying was going to be tight,” said Palmer. “The car feels better and the performance is closer this weekend so it’s a shame that we couldn’t hook it up in end but there is overall progress.
“We’ll look to have a good start and aim to get in the points tomorrow.”
