Mark Webber, 4th: “It wasn’t too bad, we had a reasonable run. In Melbourne we were a bit stronger in the race than in qualifying and looking at the gap to pole today, it seems we are two or three tenths off, which is a step in the right direction. We will re-group and have a look at how we go tomorrow. We’ve made progress with the car from Melbourne though. It’s tight between the first four rows, there’s some very good performances going on from quite a few teams – it’s good for the fans.”
Sebastian Vettel, 6th: “We didn’t feel so good on the medium compound tyre, so we decided to go onto the harder tyre for the final lap, which was a step forward. I didn’t feel that good in the car and was struggling to find the balance, so I didn’t get everything out of it for one flying lap. There’s not been much time to react since Australia – only one week. The McLarens were strong in Australia and they are strong here, so they are the ones to beat. I think in race trim we might look a bit better, but nonetheless I think you can see that we don’t have the easiest car to drive, we are aware of that and are pushing very hard.”
Christian Horner: “Fourth and fifth on the grid after Kimi’s penalty is probably what we expected going into qualifying today. The McLarens have looked very strong all weekend. We elected to take a different approach with both drivers tomorrow, with Mark qualifying on the softer tyre and Sebastian on the harder tyre. Our long run pace has been encouraging throughout the weekend, so hopefully we can have a strong race tomorrow and put on a good show.”
(Renault) Cyril Dumont: “An interesting qualifying session today. We can see that it’s really tight, as we’ve got eight cars within four tenths of a second only, so I think we can’t give up on anything at all. We have to push in all directions and get even hundreths of a second where we can. The race will be interesting tomorrow, as Seb is going to start on the hard tyres while Mark is on medium tyres, so it will be interesting to see how we get on. Today I’m a bit disappointed of course, but it will be a hot race tomorrow, so many things can happen.”
