5th and 6th reasonable to do well from - Vettel
Qualifying for the German Grand Prix ended up with 5th and 6th positions for Red Bull drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel. Both seemed happy with the outcome with Vettel highlighting that the positions are good enough to score well during tomorrow's Grand Prix.
Daniel Ricciardo, 5th: “It wasn’t too bad today, we would like to be further forward than fifth, but the lap I did was pretty good. I made quite an improvement in Q3 from Q2 so I can’t really argue with the lap I did, but as a team we are still a bit off. We know the Mercedes is strong, but the Williams was also continually showing their pace today and the McLaren with Kevin was good, so we have to keep working but we did what we could. I think the race will be close between the top eight tomorrow and it will be a battle for the final podium spot.”
Sebastian Vettel, 6th: “It was a bit tough today and the final run didn’t come together, but other than that it was good session. I felt happier in the car this afternoon that I did this morning, so that was good. We’re not sure what the weather will be like tomorrow; we will have a reasonable position to do well from.”
Christian Horner, Team Principal: “Fifth and sixth are probably about the maximum amount we could get in qualifying today. We are very competitive in sections 1 and 3, but unfortunately the middle sector really seems to favour the Mercedes powered cars here in Hockenheim. Nonetheless, both drivers did the best they could to extract the most they could out of the car and hopefully in tomorrow’s race in these hot conditions, we can progress from fifth and sixth on the grid.”
Thierry Salvi, Renault engines support: “It was again a difficult day for us today. The very hot weather conditions required specific settings and caused no particular problems, but we know there are a lot of other things to improve and we are competing against the clock now. We got into the top five, but the gap is large so the only solution is working harder than the others. Driver-wise, Daniel did a very good job again whereas Seb had to cope with some drivability issues that obviously cost some lap time. Staying close to the front will be difficult tomorrow, but on this old style track everything is possible.”
