Driver quotes from todays Qualfying.
INFINITI RED BULL RACING
#1 Sebastian Vettel “In wet conditions, we have a bit more of a chance against Mercedes than in the dry. I think the conditions for tomorrow are forecast to be dry, but for sure we will try and do what we can. I think we are in the best position to try and give them a hard time in the race, so let’s see. We made some
improvements with the car this weekend and I think the test in Bahrain helped, but we still have some work to do. I would like to be first of course, but I have a good position to start the race. Well done to Daniel today, he’s doing very well I have to say.”
#3 Daniel Ricciardo “I couldn’t have got anything extra out of the car on that last lap, I got everything I could out of it; for that I’m pleased and I got rewarded with a front row place for tomorrow. It took a while to get going in the session today, I didn’t have the comfort or pace 
that I was aiming for, but I got it at the end. I feel like I’m ready to get a good result, I know it’s never going to be easy but I’m prepared for the fight tomorrow and I’ll embrace it. I couldn’t have settled into the team any better to be honest, they made me feel at home very quickly and it’s helping me. I’m really enjoying the driving and it seems to be showing with the results. I’m really pleased. The team is closing the gap to the front and we’re getting better each race.”
MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS
#44 Lewis Hamilton « It was a tough session today, but I really enjoyed it. It’s definitely the most satisfying feeling to come away with pole position in these wet conditions because the track is so slippery and you need to find the grip to put the lap together. The car felt great and the team have done a fantastic job this weekend. Our rivals look closer in the wet conditions, so we’ll be hoping it’s a dry race to take 
advantage of the position we’re in. We go into the race with a little bit of an unknown because after I struggled in practice on Friday. We made a lot of changes to the car and I haven’t yet had a chance to try them in the dry. It felt pretty good in the wet, though, so I’m hopeful that we can convert our pole position into a strong race performance tomorrow.
#6 Nico Rosberg « I had two main problems today. I wasn’t totally happy with the feeling on the brakes, which resulted in me locking up and going off on my fast lap on the second to last lap. Then on my final timed lap, I was half a second quicker going into the last corner – but my time delta on my steering wheel display said that I was two tenths slower. So I just took a big risk and spun because I mistakenly thought I had nothing to lose anyway. However, fourth place is not a disaster. I was quick on Friday doing the race preparation so I am still confident that there is everything to play for
tomorrow. »
SCUDERIA FERRARI
#14 Fernando Alonso “When it rains you never know how things will turn out as track conditions can get worse lap after lap and so that’s one reason for me to be pleased with the way qualifying went. Fifth place means I can start with the lead group and if I can stay with the leaders we can finish close to the podium. The opening laps will count for a lot therefore and we must try our absolute best to get a good start and to avoid battles, which in the last few races have seen us lose ground. Yesterday, the car was more competitive and that means we can hope for a better race than in the last three. I think that here in China, we have taken the first step towards improving; the car behaved well in all areas and is performing better on the aerodynamic front, thanks to the small updates we have introduced here and we have more power, having revised some settings on the power unit. Certainly, we are still a long way off the pace of the leaders, because they too are progressing, but we can hope to fight for better positions and more points.”
#7 Kimi Raikkonen “The past two days have been difficult, because after yesterday’s technical problem, this morning I also only did a single run, but overall, I felt more comfortable in the car. Unfortunately, on my last run in Q2, when I was on my quick lap, I lost a lot of time in the final sector and that meant I didn’t make the cut to Q3. The car’s handling was inconsistent, as it was stable in some parts of the track and less so in others. I had some problems with the balance and this had an effect on my performance. It’s too early to say what happened, but the time lost yesterday definitely didn’t help. Now I want to concentrate on tomorrow’s race and try my best to end this weekend with a good result.”
McLAREN MERCEDES
#22 Jenson Button “It’s always tough in these conditions – it was difficult for us to get heat into the tyres, especially with the low ambient temperatures we experienced today. “I had tyre-shuddering during Q2: shuddering is what happens when you can’t get enough temperature into the tyre. The surface of the tyre is affected when you apply steering lock; the tyre doesn’t grip and it just jumps across the circuit. “It’ll be difficult in the race tomorrow – we’ll be racing on a green track with no grip because of all today’s rain. So it’ll be about succeeding with the hand you’re dealt. “So I really hope it’ll be dry tomorrow because in the dry I think we can have a fun race. We’re further back than we’d like, but there have been some pretty good results from this far back already this season. “We’ll get out there and see what we can do tomorrow afternoon.”
#20 Kevin Magnussen “I’m pretty disappointed to have qualified 15th – it’s not great. I don’t really know what happened, we had issues with overall grip – I’m not sure if it was the tyres not being in the correct working temperature range. “We’ll go back and look at things – I believe we’re better than 15th, so we clearly didn’t get everything right today. Still, we’re not fast enough and we need to find more speed. “The team is doing a good job of improving things, but it just takes time. These things aren’t fixed overnight, but I have faith in the team. We’ll get there. “We’ll see what we can do in the race tomorrow.”
SAHARA FORCE INDIA F1 TEAM
#27 Nico Hulkenberg “A top ten result is always what we are aiming for in qualifying, so from that perspective I am happy to be eighth. It was very wet out there and I was struggling a bit with the car balance under braking, but all in all I think we’re in a good starting position for the race. Tomorrow’s weather should improve and we ran in the dry yesterday so we know what to expect and will adapt to any conditions. It will be interesting to see the tyre development through the race because graining is a classic feature of this track, but I’m confident we can work around it and make the tyres last.”
#11 Sergio Perez “It was not an easy session and the truth is that I’ve been struggling with the car balance all weekend. I think the wet weather today exaggerated those issues and it leaves me P16 and feeling a bit disappointed. I found it hard to generate enough temperature in my tyres and I was sliding around in each corner and especially under braking. The weather is expected to be better tomorrow so I am sure we can recover some ground and move up into the fight for points.”
SAUBER F1 TEAM
#99 Adrian Sutil “I am satisfied with today’s qualifying. Although the conditions were not easy, I am happy that we got through to Q2. This is a better performance in comparison to the last qualifying sessions. We were able to benefit from the wet conditions and it was better than under the dry ones. This is a small step and I hope we continue with this trend. There is still a lot to do, but it is great that we are not starting from the back rows. We can build on this. We did a lot of set-up changes for the wet conditions and we are satisfied with the performance of the car. Now we hope that we also have a good race tomorrow. If the conditions are dry for the race, I believe it will be difficult for us. However, we have to look forward and try to make up positions.”
#21 Esteban Gutierrez “Today we had tricky and difficult conditions. At the same time, I am frustrated as I could have made it into Q2.On my last lap I had an unexpected technical issue from Turn 6 on. The brake-bywire went to the safety mode, so the feeling in the brake pedal and the brake balance changed. I had to deal with this issue through most of my last lap, but, nevertheless, I almost made into Q2. Unfortunately, I then made a mistake in the last corner. For the race tomorrow we have to be consistent and take advantage of every opportunity that comes up. This is the only way to push
forward. We are still waiting for the car updates which will be in Barcelona. There we expect to make a step forward.”
SCUDERIA TORO ROSSO
#25 Jean-Eric Vergne “I’m really pleased with my qualifying, it’s been a great lap. I’m happy with myself as all my qualifying laps this year so far have been good laps, without mistakes. This car is pretty difficult to drive in the wet condition, so to make it into Q3 even today is a big satisfaction for me and the
team. You really have to make your perfect lap and I think I did. As for tomorrow, the weather forecast says it’s going to be dry, which is a much more suitable condition for our car, so we can expect a good race. In the long runs our pace looks competitive, so I will do my best to make a good start and from the ninth position on the grid, if everything comes together, we can definitely aim for some more points.”
#26 Daniil Kvyat “This was a very tricky qualifying session today and even though I gave it my all, I was not able to go any faster than this. It seems that I have lost a lot of grip between this morning’s FP3 and Qualifying, so I’m eager to have a look at the data later on. Overall I’m disappointed with how
things went today, but I’m confident we can still have a good race tomorrow, especially if it is going to be dry.”
WILLIAMS MARTINI RACING
#19 Felipe Massa « Today was a difficult day for us, as the weather was tough, but we got the most of out of it and showed that we have improved in the wet. It’s good to see forward steps. Tomorrow could be an interesting day as we are more competitive in the dry; it could make for a good race. To have both cars in the top ten once again is really promising, now we have to go and improve for the race tomorrow. »
#77 Valtteri Bottas « Today was a positive day for us as it’s clear we have made some improvements in the wet. The updates we brought here have helped in the dry but it’s good to see they have improved the car’s performance in the wet as well. It’s the right direction and it’s the result of a lot of hard work from the guys. We are still more competitive in the dry so we hope the race will be dry and we can finish higher than we are today. »
MARUSSIA F1 TEAM
#17 Jules Bianchi “This morning I was really unhappy with the car but we made some changes in the break and they worked out perfectly for qualifying, even though the track was quite tricky with the rain. I was having a good battle with Kobayashi, trading times in the changing conditions, but on my quick
lap I ran wide in the last corner and this meant that he was able to get ahead. However, we were very close, even with my mistake, so it looks like we can enjoy a good race tomorrow in what will be better conditions.”
#4 Max Chilton “I’m quite frustrated with that qualifying session. The car was really good in FP3 this morning, but I struggled with the balance in qualifying and couldn’t get a clean lap together. The conditions out there were quite difficult but I still felt that there was more to come had I been happier with the balance. Nonetheless, tomorrow is another day so I’ll take my frustration and try to turn that into another good race performance.”
CATERHAM F1 TEAM
#9 Kamui Kobayashi “As FP3 was wet and the grip levels were low everyone was being cautious but we managed to complete 12 laps, all on the inters apart from the installation. The car was ok, a bit too much oversteer but we did make some gains in braking over the two runs and finished the session
without any issues. “It was raining before the start of qualifying but the track conditions were right on the edge of choosing between inters and full wets so we went for the inters as that could have given us the best chance of springing a surprise in Q1. It was certainly pretty tricky on inters but the times were just about there with the wets on the first run so we stuck with them for the second run and went out to run to the flag. For the second stint the conditions were improving slightly, but still not enough for us to have a clear advantage on the intermediates, so ending up ahead of Bianchi in
18th and only three tenths from Gutierrez is probably about as good as we could have done today.”
#10 Marcus Ericsson “FP3 was my second wet session of the season and we started with the installation lap on full wets before switching to inters for the first run. That went ok but when I boxed we found a couple of issues with the power unit and an overheating front right brake that meant we could only complete six laps in the session. “Quali was tough, especially considering I only had six laps this morning, but I’m relatively happy with how it ended up, especially as that was only my third ever session in the wet in F1! We went for the same strategy as Kamui and the car was a real handful on the first stint – I had front and rear locking in the braking zones and that was costing me a lot of time, plus I had some traffic issues on the first stint that also cost me time, but overall I’m happy I kept it on the track and finished ahead of Chilton.”
