F1 News
Small margins in France: "I lost the back end and that was it"
Nicolás Quarles van Ufford
At the dawn of his team's home Grand Prix in France, Renault driver Nico Hülkenberg couldn't manage to put his RS19 in Q3 ahead of the race, with the German starting 13th barring any grid penalties.
The Hülk saw his teammate Daniel Ricciardo once again beating him on Saturday, making it seven straight times now, with the Aussie positioning himself nicely for the race as he'll start P8.
The 31-year-old Hülkenberg was rational in his assessment of his own performance, saying he just couldn't piece together a perfect lap to make it to the final shoot-out.
“Today was about small margins," the one-time pole-sitter analysed.
"We didn’t have a totally smooth Q2, and that’s why we’re outside the top ten. Nothing bad happened, my first lap in Q2 on Mediums was good, but on my second lap, which is supposed to be quicker, I lost the back end into turn eight and that was it."
Despite the performance during qualifying, Hülkenberg remains optimistic when previewing tomorrow's race, which mark's the 40th anniversary of Renault's maiden F1 win, saying he still backs himself to end up accumulating more points on the back of an impressive P7 in Canada.
"I’ll aim to race hard tomorrow. Our race pace looked good in practice and we’ll aim to keep it clean. There’s potential for points, and we’ll do everything we can to put the car back in the top ten.”
