‘We never stopped pushing’ - Colombo delighted with progress as he gets set for first front row start in Race 1

Lorenzo Colombo was a surprise name at the top of the timesheet after the first set of runs in Qualifying, and while the Campos Racing driver eventually dropped down to P11, he feels the session was proof that the team have taken a big leap forward.

The P11 finish marks a seven-place improvement on his previous best result in Qualifying and more closely aligns the Italian with his own aspirations. Although, he had expected the progress to come a round earlier, with some tinkering to the car between Le Castellet and Spielberg not adding to the performance as expected.

After some further work between Rounds 3 and 4, Colombo was delighted to finally see their hard work pay off.

“I'm really happy about the improvements we've made with the team,” said Colombo. “We never stopped pushing and we are slowly getting up to pace. We're still missing something, but we're going to deeply analyse this later on.

“I think I did a really good job putting a really good lap in on the first set, but of course people improved on the second set. We still struggled a little bit to find the extra margin that we are missing, but I'm really happy about the improvements we've made so far.

“In Austria, the car was still basically in the same position as the first race (of the season) so that was quite weird for me because I thought the car had improved. But here we have made a good step forwards and we need to keep doing these steps, a tiny bit, and maybe by the end of the season we can really fight for good positions."

Colombo will start from the front row for the first time in Formula 3 on Saturday morning after his 11th place finish secured him P2 on Race 1’s reverse grid.

It’s a position he was used to in Formula Renault last season, where he took five podiums, but not one he’s accustomed to in F3.

“We need to see with the strategy what we will do as a team,” said Colombo. “We still need to speak about Qualifying so we need to do a lot of work still. It's nice to be starting on the front row and getting back where I have started in the past. starting from the front is always nice.

“All we need to do is get as many points as we can without making mistakes and collect the maximum available from our potential at the moment."