Renault could do no better than 15th in Barcelona
Although Kevin Magnussen had the satisfaction of making it back to Q2, he couldn't do better than 15th. He will start two places ahead of Jolyon Palmer.
For the first time since the Australian Grand Prix, a Renault has managed to make it to Q2. Certainly, Kevin Magnussen benefited from Williams’ strategic error with Felipe Massa, but the Dane is not going to begrudge his satisfaction, even if the final result remains modest: « I think we got everything we could out of the car and the team as a whole did a good job of exploiting this potential. Fifteenth place is the best result we could hope for. In this sense, we had a good day, but I’m looking forward to making progress in the upcoming races. »
However, Jolyon Palmer, after losing Friday due to various technical problems, almost joined his teammate in the second phase of qualifying, before having to give up in the last seconds: « It was disappointing to miss Q2 by being eliminated in the very last seconds. The car has clearly improved and was behaving well. At the wheel, I was satisfied with my lap, but we weren’t quite at the level we should have been at the end of the session. There is still a bit to gain with the car, and we will try to improve tomorrow during the race. »
Under these conditions, we will have to rely on exceptional race situations to hope to replicate the point-scoring achievement in Sochi.
