Renault's Daniel Ricciardo says he never doubted that Renaut's lacklustre Friday pace would carry over to Saturday at Silverstone.
The Australian set the seventh fastest lap in qualifying for the British Grand Prix, coming out on top in the midfield fight and confirming that the team had got over its issues from Austria two weeks ago.
"It was a good turnaround," Ricciardo said. "I think from yesterday I didn't have panic mode, we weren't competitive yesterday afternoon, But I knew that wasn't our limit.
"I believed that we would have improved and that we would get a good crack at Q3. To jump the McLarens, I thought that would be a bit of a stretch. So to do that, I'm certainly happy."
Ricciardo stated that the car was feeling good from the first laps of FP3, and little work was done on it prior to qualifying.
"From the first lap this morning I thought 'oh, this is what I've been asking from the car from yesterday'. We didn't really touch the car today, just chipped away at it."
Teammate Nico Hulkenberg also ended qualifying inside the top ten, but was two-tenths down on Ricciardo in tenth place.
Despite the improvements from Austria, Hulkenberg admitted that Renault is still struggling from limitations that it has said since the start of the season.
"I think in Austria it was a bit of a myth as to what happened, I don't fully understand it.
"Here, it wasn't expected somehow that it would be back to normal but we still had the same car limitations that we've had from the start of the season.
"Austria does have a few medium speed corners and they're the corners that we were struggling the most. It's still difficult to understand. But that's history anyway."
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Login to replyRam Samartha
Posts: 1,172
Really enjoying watching the battle shape up against Renault and McLaren!