Clement Novalak admitted he has underperformed in qualifying so far this season which has hindered him from maximising his solid race pace.

The Frenchman qualified behind this team mate Felipe Drugovich in Hungary in P19 but managed the Feature Race well to salvage P12 finishing just outside the points.

The MP Motorsport driver also discussed his good pace on the soft tyre which helped him gain places after a lacklustre qualifying session.

Novalak explained: “It’s been tough, it’s been very tough qualifying wise I think in the racing and the races and so on I’ve made some good steps since the beginning of the year.” 

“We struggled once again in qualifying which I think has been our weak foot all season. 

“The pace especially in the Feature Race was extremely strong on the soft so quite pleased with that.

“I think it’s a shame that we have to keep starting so far back every time because relatively strong race pace gets us back into the fringes if not the top 10 sometimes, which I think we deserve to be a bit more but it’s ok.

“I think the main goal is to really try and keep improving qualifying for the rest of the year because I think that’s the little problem we still have to scoring with points every weekend.”

The 21-year-old currently sits P15 in the championship having scored the best result of fourth at Imola earlier this season and a well deserved fifth place in Spain during his first full season in Formula 2.

Novalak also said that tyre degradation hasn’t been a big factor throughout the campaign: “Tyre degradation really hasn’t been an issue in F2 this year but it’s been relatively strong.”

He also shed light on his plans for the summer break ahead of the next round in Belgium at Spa-Francorchamps: “A little bit of a holiday, some training, just normal racing driver stuff really.”

Image: DutchPhoto Agency