__FIA Formula 2: Hello and welcome to the press conference with the top three qualifiers for tomorrow's FIA Formula 2 Feature Race here in Austria. We are joined by pole sitter Nyck de Vries for ART Grand Prix, in second place is Anthoine Hubert for BWT Arden and in third place is Guanyu Zhou for UNI- Virtuosi Racing. Nyck, your first lap was good enough for pole it turned out, but you then cemented pole position with a second run. Just how close to the perfect session was that for you today?

Nyck de Vries__: First of all thank you to the team because they've given me an awesome car today. I think this one should be for my engineer at home. Unfortunately he is not here this weekend for family reasons, but he'll be back at the next event. I'm sorry for him, we were in touch between the two sessions so that one is for him. We had a pretty straightforward day. We were competitive in practice and we carried that on into qualifying. I think we made the right decisions to optimise our package. As you said, our first run was good. To be very honest I wasn't entirely satisfied with my own second run because I feel there was a bit more in it. I think I was a bit too conservative to just complete the lap because when you do such a good first run you obviously don't want to do anything wrong on the second run because you know you have the package, you have the pace, to grab pole. I think I was perhaps a bit too conservative on the second lap but nevertheless it was good enough for pole and I'm very happy with the four points today. We'll have a bigger job to do tomorrow.

__FIA Formula 2: I think I'm right in saying you've qualified in the top four in every round so far this season, but it's two poles in the last three races. Is there anything that's contributed to making that final step in the last few weekends?

Nyck__: If I reflect back on our season so far we've been kind of building ourselves into the season. Even if you have experience in the championship every year is slightly different, the team is slightly different and you always need to adapt to each. I think we're going in the right direction but we have to take it step by step. As you could see in Paul Ricard every race is different and every weekend is different so we'll take it day-by-day. Today was a good day and tomorrow is a new day.

__FIA Formula 2: Well done today. Anthoine moving on to you. Today was your best qualifying performance by far in FIA Formula 2. Just how happy are you with your performance?

Anthoine Hubert__: Obviously very, very happy. It's not like Nyck, I haven't been in the top four in all my qualifying sessions this year laughs. Free practice was not easy so to be honest with you my target was to maybe be in the top 10. We know qualifying is where we need to work having looked at the past few events. The first run was already really good, I was P4 after that, so we decided to go out in the middle of the session to try and avoid the traffic. That was a really good strategy from the team so thanks to my engineer for that. The car was really good so I could improve my laptime on the second set and went to P2. After that I got out of the car and watched the others driving laughs. That was quite a stressful moment, maybe the most nervous moment of the session! I didn't expect to stay in P2 to be honest, but while everyone improved it was not enough so I stayed there and I'm really happy about the result.

__FIA Formula 2: We're just five days on since you won the Sprint Race at your home Round. Does it feel like you've continued the momentum from Paul Ricard coming here?

Anthoine__: Yeah, exactly. I won the last two Sprint Races so for sure now my target is to do better in the Feature Race because it's good to win races but I would prefer to be fighting for the top five or podiums in the first race. I knew there were two points which we needed to improve which were qualifying and pit stops, so I'm really happy to get P2 straight away after this analysis. It was not easy but it's a good step forward. It doesn't mean that the race is going to be easy, we still need to work hard and I'm sure the team will do a good job. I know they're improving the pit stops so hopefully we can have a good one as well tomorrow.

__FIA Formula 2: Congratulations today. Guanyu moving on to you. It's now back-to-back top three performances for you in qualifying, and it was very close at the front. What's your overall feeling at the end of today?

Guanyu Zhou__: I'm happier today than the last round. Today I think practice was a tough session from my side and we didn't really have great pace. We've been working for that after free practice and it was great job by the team like I was saying before. We definitely improved the car for the qualifying session. The first run was just getting a clean lap and nothing special, I think I was P7. After that I knew I had one lap with the supersoft tyres and I just managed to do a pretty good lap with a few mistakes. It wasn't a clean lap from my side. Coming round and looking at the dash, I think it was 18.3, then the engineer told me it was P3 so I was a bit surprised but quite happy with that. It's always nice to be in the top five or the top three in qualifying.

__FIA Formula 2: I think it's the first time we've had two rookies in the top three in qualifying so far this season. It's developing into a nice little battle between you and Anthoine for the honour of 'top rookie', is that something that you've got your eye on? A little bit of a personal fight between the rookies?

Guanyu__: From my side I'm definitely not fighting for the rookie championship, I'm more fighting for the overall championship. I don't know about Anthoine but I think it's the same. As a rookie to be performing well is the best thing we can do. I knew in the first race, especially with all the experienced guys around me, it was going to be tough but every race weekend we're learning something new and we're performing pretty well together. Hopefully I can continue the momentum and carry on for the rest of the championship.

__FIA Formula 2: Thank you very much. Nyck, just returning to you, starting from pole position is obviously the ideal position but it's been very hot so far this weekend and tyres are normally a topic. How challenging do you think the Feature Race is going to be tomorrow?

Nyck__: Very challenging laughs. Exactly how challenging I will tell you after the race tomorrow! Obviously we have some numbers after free practice and we'll analyse them tonight and tomorrow ahead of the race. Based on those numbers we'll make the best decisions possible and hopefully we'll have a good race. Honestly, the window is so narrow that sometimes you think you get it right and you don't and sometimes it's a bit of luck if you get it right. That just shows how competitive and how difficult it is. In F1 they always talk about tyres but they have one thousand sensors on the car and we don't even have telemetry, so it's tough and challenging but let's see. We'll do our best and hopefully it will be a good one.