McLaren were pleased after both Carlos Sainz Jr. and Lando Norris made into Q3 with the Brit seventh and the Spaniard eighth
Norris was pleased to have to secured his eighth appearance in Q3 after being knocked out in Q1 last time out in Germany.
“A good qualifying. Compared to Hockenheim last week, it was a good improvement and it’s nice to be back in Q3 again. It wasn’t easy; it was still close together in the midfield, but I’ve felt comfortable in the car all weekend and I was always reasonably happy, massive thanks to the team at the track and everyone back at the factory. Now we just need to convert our quali form in the race.”
Sainz’s was also happy after making Q3 for the sixth time this season, and his third appearance in Q3 at the Hunagaroring in his F1 career.
“I think it’s a positive day for the team. Coming into the weekend we weren’t so sure about the performance on this track, but we managed to make the right decisions with the set-up going into Saturday, and we put both cars in Q3.
Sainz suffered with balance issues in Q1, however they were rectified to see him improve on his times in all three sessions.
“I started off Q1 with some balance issues, but we managed to sort them out through the session, improving every time I went out and finally doing a good lap on my last attempt in Q3. Seventh and eighth is great news for the team on this track and we can race from there tomorrow.”
Team principal Andreas Seidl now thinks McLaren is the fourth best team on a circuit which may have not suited the MCL34.
“Well done to the whole team for another well-executed qualifying session. It’s only the second time this year we’ve managed to get both cars into the top-eight.
“Carlos and Lando did an excellent job, improving progressively through the sessions, but this was a real team effort, both here at the track and back at MTC. Collectively, the team is working incredibly hard to identify the limitations of the car and devise solutions. It’s getting better all the time with updates from the aero department adding performance constantly.
“We were clearly the fourth-fastest team today on a track which, on paper, didn’t look like being particularly strong for us.
“Of course, nobody scores points on Saturday, so we’ve got to get our heads down now and work hard on race preparation. We have a really good platform from which to deliver a strong result tomorrow.”
