Felipe Nasr says that he is targeting his maiden championship points in Formula One after the Sauber rookie qualified eleventh for Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.
The Brazilian narrowly missed out on a first Q3 appearance in the C34 as he ended up a mere 74 thousands shy of Pastor Maldonado’s tenth time in Q2.
Having graduated to F1 after three GP2 campaigns, Nasr comfortably outpaced team-mate Marcus Ericsson, who was knocked off in the opening phase of qualifying around the Albert Park Circuit.
The 22-year-old’s promising performance undoubtedly gives Sauber a reason to smile and enables the Hinwill-based team to deflect attention away from the van der Garde saga.
“As a team we can be happy that we nearly made it into Q3," said Nasr. "Missing FP1 on Friday affected the performance of the car to a certain extent, and I also had less time getting to know the new track in Melbourne.
"All in all I am satisfied with the result and I am looking forward to the race. Tomorrow is an important day with it being my first ever Formula One race, and we are going to push for points.”
After showing flashes of potential in pre-season testing, Caterham refugee Ericsson was frustrated not to have been able to put everything together on his first qualifying session at Sauber.
“It was a disappointing session for me being P16, and we cannot be satisfied with this result,” said Ericsson. “I had quite a good feeling in the car yesterday, but today I have been struggling to feel confident, especially in the braking zones.
"We need to analyse the data tonight to see what we have changed from yesterday, so that we can learn from that and fight back during the race.”
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