Audi works driver Nico Hülkenberg: "We had to break the curse today"

Qualifying at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya went well for Nico Hülkenberg. For the first time since Audi's Formula 1 entry, the GP rookie made it into the top 10 segment of the final practice session. It was his first Q3 appearance since last year's race weekend in São Paulo.

Hülkenberg was able to celebrate ninth place thanks to the early Q3 retirement of Charles Leclerc, who had not yet completed a timed lap in the final qualifying section. And he was in a correspondingly good mood: "That feels pretty good. Everything came together today. We got it right to the point."

And the 38-year-old German, who has already finished four GP qualifying sessions and two sprint qualifying sessions in eleventh place this year, reported: "In the first qualifying segment, I had quite a lateral adjustment on the first fast attempt in the third corner and therefore had to take the second set of tyres. That left me with just one more fresh set of tyres for Q2. That was a bit difficult, but I stayed calm and managed it well. I thought to myself, not eleventh place today, today we had to break the curse."

With regard to the decisive Q2 performance, Hülkenberg added: "This is such a brutal tyre track, so it's relatively simple. You always have one lap, and there's not much you can do with a used set of tyres anyway. So it was clear what we had to do."

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