Sebastian Vettel (1st, Q3 - 1m 23.529s)
“It was a funny winter; the cars changed a lot and testing was really busy. We all tried to work our way around the Pirelli tyres and coming here we’re all impressed by how they’re working on one lap and also when there’s more fuel in the car. It’s promising for Sunday, so we’ll see how we get on. We have made the first step and starting the season this way with a pole position is a good sign for the team. We’ve been working very hard to get the RB7 to where it is now - it’s thanks to all those in the factory and those here, down under, for preparing the car. If you look at the points we still have zero like everyone else, so we need to see what happens tomorrow.”
Lewis Hamilton (2nd, Q3 - 1m 24.307s)
“I was really happy with my lap today. The car felt fantastic, and I owe it all to the guys back at the factory, in the design office and those building components. They need to give themselves a huge pat on the back. It was a brave decision to make such a dramatic change to the car, and a superb effort to deliver that change. An amazing turnaround! However, although I was pleased with my performance today, my KERS Hybrid stopped working halfway round my final lap - I had 40 percent left that I couldn’t deploy - but that would have been worth only an extra couple of tenths. Still, it’s good to know, because this car platform is now definitely something we can build upon. Tomorrow is a long race and it won’t be won at the first corner. We need to take home some good points from this weekend because we know our car will only get better. We still have some work to do, but I think the race is winnable from here - and I’ll be giving Sebastian the race of his life tomorrow!”
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Formula 1: Sebastian Vettel Grabs Pole For Australian Grand Prix
Formula 1: Australian Grand Prix - Race Line Up
Mark Webber (3rd, Q3 - 1m 24.395s)
“I was disappointed with my performance today. Sebastian put in a very good lap. I’m a little bit mystified by the gap to be honest, I tried my best. I’ll have to go through it and have a look at where I can improve and go from there. It’s frustrating, but credit to the team; the guys have done an incredible job. Obviously it wasn’t the best day for me, but the bar is high. I would like to have done better, but reflecting on the performance of the team and what they’ve done over the winter - it’s incredible.”
Jenson Button (4th, Q3 - 1m 24.779s)
“I think we should be happy with this result. Q3 was a bit disappointing, however: I got stuck behind Nico (Rosberg), and Felipe (Massa) had a spin in front of me. It was all quite messy - the lap that I didn’t complete in Q2 would have been quicker! So we didn’t get the most out of our package in Q3, but it’s nonetheless a massive step forward from what we had in testing, so we should all be very happy with what we’ve done so far. And there’s still a lot we can build on: the car is still in its early stages because we haven’t done much testing. To be reliable and reasonably quick gives us huge motivation: everyone back at the factory should be really proud - they put in an awful lot of hard work to get us here today. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow: I had a good race from fourth last year, and I think I can have a good race from fourth this year, too. We ought to be positive and think we can challenge for the win tomorrow.”
Fernando Alonso (5th, Q3 - 1m 24.974s)
“Clearly, we cannot be happy with this result, but we must not immediately make a drama out of it. We definitely did not get the most out of the car and we have to understand the reasons for that. Compared to what we saw at the tests, here we ended up much closer to cars that had been a long way off in Spain. We went well yesterday and we had a good feeling for the car, while right from this morning the situation changed, obviously for the worse. Now let’s see how the race turns out. In testing and in yesterday’s free practice, our performance over a long run was good and we were definitely closer to those who today seem to be a long way off. Fifth place on the grid is not too bad and it means I am in a position to fight for a podium finish in a race which is still wide open, if you only think what happened last year, with Kubica starting from sixth or seventh and finishing second. McLaren seems to have made a good step forward, but you should not dismiss Mercedes either, who were impressive at the last Barcelona test.”
Vitaly Petrov (6th, Q3 - 1m 25.247s)
“After all the hard work during a very tough winter for the whole team, it feels great to come here and qualify on the third row. There was a lot of pressure in Q3 because I only had one run, right at the end of the session. So there were no second chances and I’m glad I was able to deliver the lap. The car has felt good right from the start of practice and we’ve improved it constantly during each session. I think we are in a great position for the race and that we can fight for some points tomorrow. I’m not too worried about the tyres because they have been working well for us so far and we have not seen the drop off that we saw during winter testing.”
Nico Rosberg (7th, Q3 - 1m 25.421s)
“I’m disappointed as when I went to bed last night, I was hopeful of a good qualifying performance. In the morning, a few things didn’t work on my car, but the team did a good job and almost all of the systems were working for Qualifying, so we need to find out what happened. I did make a small mistake in Q3 which possibly cost me a place but it hasn’t quite come together for us this weekend. One good thing is that I will start on the clean side of the grid, and we will do our best to score some good points tomorrow.”
Felipe Massa (8th, Q3 - 1m 25.599s)
“We were less competitive than we could rightly have expected and there’s no doubt about that. Sure, I did not think I would be fighting for pole, especially when you look at the very quick time that Vettel did, but I had hoped to be higher up the order. We had problems with grip on both the hard and the soft tyres on a surface where the tyres wear a lot less than we have seen in winter testing and they provide less grip on the first lap, or at least they do with our car. Now we have to prepare as well as possible for tomorrow’s race, when pure speed will not be the only thing that counts, with reliability and team work being especially important. My spin in Q3? When I came out of pit lane, I accelerated and the tyres were evidently still too cold: the set was not damaged for the race, but it was definitely not a help on my only flying lap.”
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