Artem Markelov feels he can get a good result in the Feature race at Silverstone after a last gasp lap put him eighth on the grid having been sat eighteenth before that.
The Russian Time driver has endured a tough season when it comes to Qualifying with the new Dallara F2 2018 chassis, starting seventeenth in Bahrain, fifteenth in Azerbaijan, nineteenth in Spain and eighteenth in Austria; only twice has he bettered his Silverstone grid slot, with third on the grid in Monaco and seventh in France.
It looked for a long while that Markelov’s Qualifying woes were to continue as he and team-mate Tadasuke Makino were seventeenth and eighteenth as the clock ticked down to zero, but he was able to push for one more lap to jump to eighth, his 1:40.590s six-tenths of a second down on the pole time of George Russell.
Markelov felt that had he had more luck and a clear track when it mattered, he could have been even higher on the grid than eighth, but it gives him some confidence for Saturday’s opening race of the weekend, where he feels he can take the fight to those ahead of him.
“On my first push lap there was a red flag and I had to return to the pits, so the edge was taken off those tyres and I was down in P14 after the first run,” said Markelov, who is a development driver for the Renault Sport Formula One Team. “Then, on my second run, I made a mistake at Turn 1 and had to abort the lap.
“I then had to wait two laps to push again so that I wasn’t impeded by people on cooldown laps. So, again, I didn’t get the first lap out of the tyres and P8, while not great, was not so bad.
“I can definitely race well from there!”
