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Q2 a possibility for Manor - Wehrlein

Pascal Wehrlein says a Q2 appearance is a possibility for Manor at the Bahrain Grand Prix after encouraging pace on Friday.

The two Manor cars were first to drop out in qualifying in Australia a fortnight ago, with the team adrift of the rest of the field. However Wehrlein was faster than both Saubers on Friday in Bahrain and just 0.3s behind Jolyon Palmer's Renault despite not running on the supersoft tyre and he says Q2 could be a potential target.

“If you look at the gaps, if you take off the 0.5s-1s for the supersoft tyre then we are somewhere in the mix but who knows?" Wehrlein said. "Q2 I think would be a very good step and we would be happy with that. I will try as hard as possible but I’m not sure if it will work out."

Asked if he was surprised with the gap to the midfield during Friday practice, Wehrlein says it is more in line with his pre-season expectations.

“I was more surprised in Melbourne about the gap than now because Barcelona was very positive and the lap time in Barcelona was really good. So we expected to be competitive and in Melbourne we had a few problems and we were far at the back and I think now it’s more where we should be.

"As I said in Melbourne we had a few issues with the car and with the tyres. You saw it in qualifying, we were nowhere and then in the race if we had been nowhere then every driver would have overtaken me in the first two laps but I was competitive until the first pit stop. That was good so I think we are more sorted out here and we are getting things more together.”

REPORT: Rosberg heads Hamilton and Button in FP2

AS IT HAPPENED: Bahrain Grand Prix FP2

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.