Senna optimistic he can secure his F1 future with strong qualifying form

The Williams driver has struggled to match the qualifying performances of team-mate Pastor Maldonado this year, having only reached the top-ten shootout at the Hungaroring.

He built on that strong performance however, putting in a solid performance in the race to finish in seventh position.

The Brazilian is confident that if he can continue to qualify well, his future at Williams will be secure.

"The only reason why we scored good points like this is because we qualified well, and we need to keep on doing it," Senna said.

"Everybody needs opportunities to grow up and this is mine. I need an opportunity to grow up and develop with the team. It's probably the hardest season in Formula 1 for who knows how many years. With a tenth of a second you can be five or six positions up.

"In the races I think I'm doing pretty well this season. As I said before, nailing qualifying will be the key to make sure I stay for next year and hopefully the next few years."

Senna believes the Hungarian weekend was his best so far this season, and admits he feels much more comfortable about his position going into the summer break.

"I think so," he said when asked by AUTOSPORT if Hungary had been his strongest weekend yet. "I think we had a strong weekend overall, and it's important to keep on pushing like that. Definitely if I had come out of the weekend with a bad result or with poor pace, you come into the break with something in the back of your mind.

"I have nothing to worry now. I think we had a strong performance overall, and I'm learning, I'm improving and it's going to be a case of chipping away and in the second half of the season I'll have much more experience and everything helps."

And the Brazilian is optimistic Williams can continue to make progress in the upcoming races, as the team knows what is the best direction for the development of its car.

"You need to keep pushing and improving. We know the team has potential. We know the direction to push the car for the next few races. There's a clear development path.

"It's just great to have car that's a top-10 finisher pretty much every race and every time you don't finish in the top 10 is mostly because of something else happened."