Eifel Grand Prix – Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo qualified in P6 for Sunday’s race at the Nurburgring, just ahead of Esteban Ocon.
Daniel Ricciardo will lead Renault’s charge at the Nurburgring, after qualifying in P6. The Australian driver finished just 0.019 clear of teammate Esteban Ocon at the end of the qualifying hour, having been close between the pair throughout all three parts of qualifying.
Ricciardo had initially attempted to get through Q2 on the Medium compound, with Ocon on Softs, but switched to Softs for his second run to pip his teammate by a quarter of a second.
Going into Q3, they put in banker laps on used Softs before switching to new tyres for their final runs.
“I’m happy enough with today’s qualifying and sixth is a good starting position for us.” said Ricciardo after the session. “It was a fun Saturday with a packed practice session and then a hectic qualifying.”
“Everyone was on track at a similar time, so it was quite enjoyable. It’s not the best preparation, but we know the car well enough and we’ll figure it out for tomorrow. We know it will be close in the race, but I’m excited and I think we can be up there and aim for a top six finish.”
“We’ll see how the Soft holds up as it looks like it could be susceptible to graining. If it’s dry or wet, it should be an interesting race and sixth isn’t a bad place to be on the grid.”
Ocon was pleased to have matched Ricciardo so closely in qualifying, saying: “It was a good qualifying for us today, especially after just one practice session. I’m happy with seventh. We had very limited knowledge on the track after not driving yesterday and just the one session today.”
“We put the car into qualifying and it performed really well from Q1, and I’m pleased with that.” Ocon continued. “We’re jumping into the unknown tomorrow as I only drove the Softs in practice and qualifying today. We’ll see how the tyres handle in the race and how long they last. We’ll see how it goes but we’re in a good position to score some good points for the championship.”
