McLaughlin delighted with confidence boosting Silverstone qualifying performance

Fionn McLaughlin had his best qualifying performance of the season, finishing sixth at Silverstone.

The Hitech driver was in good form throughout the day, showing strong form in the morning’s Free Practice where he again placed sixth.

McLaughlin followed that up with another positive performance in Qualifying where he consistently found himself in the top 10 after each run.

The Red Bull junior’s final lap of a 1:45.933 was good enough to get P6, 0.313s behind polesitter Freddie Slater but under a tenth away from Théophile Nael in P2.

Reflecting on the result, McLaughlin said: “It’s a good start to the weekend. Very happy with the team and the car felt good. It's the track that I know best in the calendar, so it was a venue that I needed to make the most out of but it was so tough today.

“The qualifying was so close, another half a tenth would have put me P2, so it was pretty crazy. I just made sure that I did the best I could and that's what I did.

“It's close to home. I spent a lot of time here when I was in F4 last year so it was nice. I've seen a lot of Irish fans here too and I'm happy that I made something out of their day. I'm very happy and its good confidence boost too.”

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When asked how he managed qualifying where the drivers had just one push lap on each set of tyres, McLaughlin said it was all about controlling his emotions.

“You need nerves of steel in a way,” he said. “It's not very nice to always be in that edge of the limit. But I felt like I controlled myself quite well and managed my expectations as well.

“Obviously FP went well and I just made sure that all I focused on was me. I just made sure in my head that I was going to maximise my lap and I just kept that throughout the week.”

Looking ahead to the races, McLaughlin is in a strong position to score points in both the Sprint and the Feature.

The next few hours before Saturday’s race will be spent working hard to analyse all the data as he looks to maximise the result.

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“I'm just going to analyse things as much as I can, and be prepared mentally and ready as well,” said McLaughlin.

“I feel like you can expect anything but I'm going to race hard, try to get the best result and try to get some points this year. I'll focus on improving and I hope I just have a good end to the week.”