Pascal Wehrlein expressed his delight of securing a career best qualifying result of 12th at the Red Bull Ring.
Wehrlein was arguably the star of qualifying after putting his Manor 12th on the grid, ahead of Haas F1’s Romain Grosjean and McLaren’s Fernando Alonso.
The German has struggled on the whole this season, in comparison to his race performances, however, today will surely add to the deserved hype that surrounds him.
“It was amazing,” Wehrlein commented after qualifying.
“The team did a fantastic job, and the whole weekend I felt very comfortable in the car.”
“I think it’s the first weekend not struggling with tyre temperatures in qualifying; you can see how difficult it is and how much lap time you can win due to that.
“My lap in Q1 was really good. Also in Q2, if you think that I did my lap with the Super Soft tyre (as opposed to the Ultra Soft). I’m really happy with both laps, in Q1 and in Q2.”
Despite qualifying 12th, Wehrlein believes the race will be more difficult for Manor as they suffer higher tyre degradation compared to their competitors due to a lack of rear downforce.
“Tomorrow is a different story,” the German added
“It will be difficult on the long runs with the tyre degradation, for us especially, because we’re missing a bit of rear downforce, so we’re always really hard on the rear tyres.
“I will do my best and hopefully we have an even better result.”
