Lando Norris says there was not a lot more to extract from qualifying than P8 although the McLaren driver admitted to making a few mistakes on his best Q3 lap.
Overall, it was another solid performance for the Woking-based outfit, with Sainz also reaching the top-ten shootout and qualifying just behind his teammate.
"I’m pretty happy with today," said Norris. "I don’t think the team could’ve done a much better job.
"I might have done a better job if I’d completely nailed the lap, as I made a couple of mistakes and maybe could’ve been a position higher.
"I’m a little bit disappointed by that, but, as a team and with the car, we’ve had challenges this weekend so I’m pretty happy we’ve come out of quali with P8 and P9.
"I don’t think there was a lot more to extract.
"We’re in a more realistic position of where we think the car performance is this weekend and we’ve got some work to do to improve, but today was the best we could do."
©McLaren
Sainz said the team had sorted out overnight most of its balance issues, although a few imperfections remained.
"I still had trouble predicting the car’s behaviour, especially in the last sector, so we still had margin to improve," said the Spaniard.
"Strategy and tyre management are going to be important tomorrow starting from P9 on the used set of Softs, but we’ll fight to score good points again here in Hungary."
Sainz's position on the grid was initially in jeopardy when he was summoned to the stewards for allegedly impeding Alfa Romeo's Antonio Giovinazzi during the first segment of qualifying.
But after reviewing the incident, the Hungarian Grand Prix stewards cleared Sainz of any wrongdoing. So the McLaren driver's P9 position on tomorrow's grid remains unchanged.
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