Renault believe they could've done better in qualifying

Renault’s sporting director Alan Permane has said that Renault could’ve qualified higher in qualifying for tomorrow’s Australian Grand Prix.

Nico Hulkenberg qualified eighth but will start seventh after Daniel Ricciardo’s penalty, and Carlos Sainz will start ninth.

Hulkenberg was four-tenths of a second behind Haas’ Kevin Magnussen, who was the quickest driver outside the top three teams of Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.

Permane said: “We’re happy with today’s result but left wondering if better was possible after looking at our Q2 pace.”

Sainz was half a second faster in Q2, and had he replicated that time in Q3, it would’ve seen him qualify above Magnussen.

Permane continued: “In Q3 we couldn’t quite get the tyres into the sweet spot with either car but overall it was a trouble free qualifying session for us.

“It’s the first race of the season so we’ll be wary on the first lap and try to stay out of trouble, then we need to take the fight to our rivals and see what we can do strategically to get in front of them.

“Our cars look evenly matched in qualifying trim and we were happy with our long run pace from FP2 so moving up the field is the target for tomorrow.”