Vitaly Petrov was delighted to have outqualified Renault team-mate Robert Kubica for the first time after claiming seventh on the grid at the Hungaroring.
Going into round 12 of the championship the 25-year-old Russian rookie was the only full-time driver yet to outqualify his team-mate, and he admitted it had been important to buck that trend.
“I think we did a good job today and I'm very happy to reach Q3 and to be starting seventh ahead of Robert because you first goal is always to be ahead of your team-mate,” said Petrov.
“We knew that the car would be quite good here and I have been very happy with the balance during the whole weekend.
“But the guys in front are still very strong so we know that we need to keep pushing to catch them.
“For the race tomorrow, overtaking will be very difficult, and the only real chance is at the start, but I will do my best to try and pass some guys and score some points.”
Kubica was far from satisfied with eighth on the grid, after mysteriously losing nearly half a second between Q2 and the pole shootout.
“We were hoping to be closer to the front today,” said the Pole.
“It was looking better this morning during practice, but in Q3 I just didn't have enough grip and had a lot of bottoming with the car, which was quite strange.
“My lap in Q3 was very slow – half a second slower than my Q2 run – but I just didn't have the grip.
“For the race, everything will be about the first lap and the start of the race, so we hope to get a good start and make up some positions tomorrow.”
Team principal Eric Boullier said: “We struggled a bit with the option tyres in Q3 and we probably didn't extract the maximum performance from them, so we could have been even higher up the grid.
“But it's still a good result and we know that we can be quick in the race.
“It will be important to be opportunistic and our target will be to get ahead of [Nico] Rosberg and see if we can catch [Lewis] Hamilton.”