Wehrlein delighted with first points finish

Pascal Wehrlein doesn’t know where Manor’s improved pace came from as he gave the team its first point in two years in Austria last weekend.

The DTM champion started an impressive 12th and was running just behind Valtteri Bottas’ Williams in 11th when Sergio Perez crashed, handing him the final point-scoring place. It was Manor’s first point since Jules Bianchi finished ninth in Monaco in 2014.

“I thought ‘the race is done’ because we were so unlucky with the safety car,” Wehrlein admitted. “But I kept pushing and trying to manage my tyres because I didn’t want to stop again.

“I was able to fight with him [Bottas]. It was a great performance today from the car and I don’t know where it was coming from. It’s the first weekend that we were not struggling with tyre temperature. We don’t have so much downforce as the other teams and downforce puts energy into the tyres. We haven’t had this before and it helped us a lot.”

Wehrlein almost lost the advantage of his strong qualifying before the race even started as he lined up in the wrong place on the grid and had to reverse back. “I reversed, stopped, put it into first gear then I saw the first light come,” Wehrlein said. “I’m sure that was it [a penalty].

“Then you have so many buttons to put the engine mode in and another thing to put in, then I needed to find the reverse gear and I was like a DJ on my steering wheel.”