Mark Webber, 1st: “It was a good session. It was clear going into qualifying that we might have had a bit of a margin and would be battling for pole between ourselves today. You can never underestimate these guys though. We got through Q1 on the first set of hard tyres, which was good, and then in the crucial part of qualifying – in Q3 – it was just about getting the lap right. The lap was pretty good and I was just praying that my number went to the top when I crossed the line. It was a nice lap, a good battle with Seb and today was my day.”
Sebastian Vettel, 2nd: “We can’t speak of disappointment, at the end of the day we made a good step forward. Barcelona is the place where everyone brings a lot of new parts and you’re here to find out if they all work. I think we made a step, so did the others, but it looks as though we like this track and our cars feel comfortable here. Looking to qualifying, I didn’t get into the rhythm immediately, so it was not the smoothest run, but I made it on the primes. In Q2 I felt much happier on the soft compound tyres, but unfortunately in the last qualifying I lost a little bit too much and I wasn’t entirely happy with my lap. Mark did a good lap and a better job today. Let’s see tomorrow, it’s a long race and we saved a set of tyres. I think we will be on top of KERS for the race, the guys are pushing hard and we have proved our car has become quicker, so big compliments to the aero guys in the factory and everyone here. We are working hard on KERS. I didn’t have it in Q2 or Q3 today, but I‘m sure we will have it tomorrow for the race.”
Christian Horner: “A great team performance – it’s great for Mark to get his first pole position of the year after a perfect final run in Q3. Sebastian did phenomenal job to join Mark on the front row without the benefit of KERS. The pair had a big margin to our opposition in qualifying, although we know it will be smaller in the race. It was a fantastic team performance, we’re looking forward to tomorrow.”
(Renault) Cyril Dumont: “A really good result – our second front row of the season, which is really good for the team. I feel a bit sorry for Seb because we deprived him of running this morning, due to an electrical failure on the engine; fortunately we could fix it for qualifying. It was difficult for Sebastian to catch Mark today – also with the KERS issue he had during qualifying. It’s a good qualifying result and hopefully we will transform it into some good points tomorrow.”
