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Jolyon Palmer has said that he is happy with his tenth place qualifying result in Belgium, even though a gearbox problem forced him to stop his car in Q3 - which he could have ended as high as seventh.
The Renault man had already been showing plenty of speed through all of the prior sessions at Spa-Francorchamps, and was significantly ahead of team-mate Nico Hulkenberg in Q1 and Q2. He stormed into the top ten shootout and looked on course to beat the German again before the issue hit, ending his day in an instant. It meant he was demoted to tenth, since he had not set a timed lap by that point.
"I still feel very positive, but I think we should probably be seventh on the grid and not tenth," the Briton said afterwards. "The other thing is we have a risk of a grid penalty now - it was a gearbox problem. I'm still very happy because I think Q1 and Q2 were very easy, in practice three, we were quick all day. The pace was there to be seventh, it's just a shame the car couldn't hang on."
When asked what the reason for his dramatic upturn in fortunes was, Palmer replied: "I don't know. I just turned up driven. The car's been in a good place, except for practice one. I've been very happy with it. I haven't had to make many changes. I have a confidence in it that I haven't had in a while. I'm feeling good. I think a bit of altitude training's done me some good and I'm looking forward to the race tomorrow."
Mason Hawker
Grand Prix of Belgium
G. Zhou
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