Vettel sure rain helped him in qualifying
Red Bull Racing saw its drivers qualify in third and fifth places for tomorrow's Belgian Grand Prix. Both drivers managed the difficult and wet track well and qualified higher than the team could expect in the dry.
Sebastian Vettel, 3rd: “Yesterday was a different story to today. Today we did a lot more laps and I think the rain helped us, in dry conditions we couldn’t have qualified so high up. So, it was a good day for us and a good result and we should be a little bit more competitive compared to Mercedes in the race tomorrow, so let’s see.”
Daniel Ricciardo, 5th: ”I had a moment on Blanchimont; that corner is tricky in the wet. It’s never full, it’s always a lift or a dab of the brakes and knowing that the chequered flag was just there at the end of the session, then I just pushed it a bit too much. I guess in hindsight it cost a bit of time, but you never get the perfect lap in these conditions. Spa is unique, as the track is so long and some parts of the circuits are drier than others, so nearly every lap you’re driving blind. It’s great to drive here though.”
Christian Horner, Team Principal: “A great recovery by Seb after a difficult Friday and very little mileage to get third on the gird and with Daniel, despite running wide on his final flying lap, he managed to qualify fifth in a very low down force configuration in very tricky conditions. So, a tremendous job by both drivers and good grid positions for tomorrow’s race. Hopefully we’ll have a more competitive race car than qualifying car.”
Thierry Salvi, Renault Team Support Leader: “Obviously difficult conditions for this qualifying. The heavy rain appeared straight after FP3, making the management of both cars tricky, particularly at the end of Q2 when the rain increased. Seb was not able to change his tyres, but had the pace to go through to Q3. After that, the plan was to run as much as possible to cope with any unexpected weather conditions. Let’s see the race tomorrow with again some unexpected events to come.”
