Daniil Kvyat said the lap which earned him a place in the top 10 in qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix was one of the best of his career.

The Toro Rosso driver set the eighth-fastest time in Q2, fractionally faster than Kevin Magnussen’s Haas.

“I think it was a brilliant lap,” Kvyat told media including RaceFans after qualifying. “One of the best, actually I’ve ever had.

“For sure it’s satisfying. When I closed the lap I knew it was enough for Q3. We extracted everything today out of our performance. We earned ourselves a good starting position for tomorrow so we will try to do our best to do a good race.”

Kvyat wasn’t able to replicate the performance in Q3, where he was three-tenths of a second slower as the track conditions changed.

“In Q3 the track temperature kept getting fast and slower and the wind was swinging around a lot,” he said. “I was still happy with my lap but I think Q2 lap I would highlight that more.

“But all qualifying I made good decisions. The car after FP3 was a little bit not where I wanted to be but we managed to pull it back together for quali. We did a very good job with my engineers to understand what I need and what we need in order to go quicker.”

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2019 F1 season