Vernay grateful for team-mates' help
Jean-Karl Vernay has thanked his Signature team-mates Edoardo Mortara and Laurens Vanthoor for helping him secure a front row start for the Macau Grand Prix qualifying race
The 23-year-old Frenchman upstaged more fancied opposition to claim a spot on the front row of the grid for the blue-riband Formula 3 event on his first visit.
While admitting that he has faced an uphill task to get on the pace so quickly, he reckons the input of experienced Macau campaigners Mortara and Vanthoor - plus the guidance from his Signature team - helped him out greatly.
"It is my first time here, so I have had to learn a lot," Vernay explained. "But I am lucky because I have got good team-mates to learn how to get there, and my team have good experience.
"On the first day they told me: learn a lot and do a lot of laps, but tomorrow you will have to push 100 per cent. That is what I did.
"Other drivers were at the top pace yesterday, but today I was at 100 per cent, right at the limit. I had to do my job."
Vernay admits he is slightly disappointed about losing out on pole position to Marcus Ericsson by just 0.039 seconds, but knows that what really matters is being successful on Sunday.
"To lose the pole position by less than half a tenth is disappointing, but it is like that. The weekend is not finished, as we have the qualifying race and the race.
"I just want to be safe tomorrow to start in the top five in the main race. We will see what happens."
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