Pascal Wehrlein has described his grid slot as an "amazing position" after qualifying 16th for the Bahrain Grand Prix.
The Manor driver was confident he would be able to challenge for Q2 in Bahrain and duly delivered an impressive qualifying performance which saw him fall just a quarter of a second shy of making it through to the second part of the session.
“I was aiming for Q2 to be honest," Wehrlein said. "I knew that I would have a good car in qualifying and I felt much more confident. In the end you saw I just moved it by 0.2s but my position now feels like an amazing position to be in and start the race.”
Having been comfortably off the pace in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, Wehrlein says it was not a true representation of how competitive Manor really is and was pleased to rectify that in Bahrain.
“Of course the team has worked a lot on the car because we had some problems in Melbourne and we couldn’t fix it. So they have done an amazing job coming here and we were all confident that it will be much better here than in Melbourne because as I said we had some problems there.
"They solved that and you see now we are competitive because in Melbourne we were far at the back. We were not missing just a few tenths, we were far at the back. Now it felt like a different car, like the car I had driven in Barcelona so I am happy with that.”
Despite the strong qualifying result, Wehrlein is wary of getting ahead of himself when it comes to targets for today's race.
“First of all I would like to have the same start as in Melbourne! If I can improve seven positions at the start that would be great! To be honest I’m looking forward to the race.
"It’s hard to tell you the goals and the expectations because there are too many unsure things - how tyre degradation will be, strategy things, if we are competitive over the long runs - so I will push as hard as possible.”
REPORT: Hamilton pips Rosberg to Bahrain pole by 0.077s
AS IT HAPPENED: Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying
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