Ross Brawn, Mercedes (Team Principal):
“It was an exceptional qualifying session for us and I am very pleased with the way the whole team worked to achieve it. Congratulations to both drivers, but especially Nico on a stunning lap which earned him his first pole position. It is a great boost for everyone, and gives lots of encouragement to the team here at the track, in Brackley and Brixworth. We hope it will prove to be a step on the way to achieving our ambitions; however, we know it is only a small step and that what really counts is the race. That's what we have been working on, to start delivering similar levels of performance on Sunday afternoon.”

Norbert Haug, Mercedes (Daimler):
“What a fantastic lap from Nico for pole position - in his single attempt in Q3, he was half a second quicker than anybody else, which speaks both for him and the team. A big thank you to everybody from MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS for a great job and for all the relentless work that they are putting in to continuously improve our performance. The three fastest cars today are powered by the Mercedes V8 so well done to all our guys in Brixworth at Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains. Michael missed P2 today by less than a tenth of a second, but as Lewis will have a grid penalty, Michael will start next to Nico on the front row tomorrow. A Silver Arrows front row last happened at Monza in 1955; now, after two years in the modern era of the Silver Arrows works team, we have achieved our first one-two on the grid. Although we are in the best possible positions today, we certainly do not think that we are already winners tomorrow. So far, our long runs on high fuel and our tyre usage didn't look bad according to Pirelli, so we all will do our best for tomorrow. Hats off to Nico again - this was a great lap, my friend, which you will remember for a very long time.”

Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren-Mercedes (Team Principal):
“First of all, I'd like to offer our congratulations to Mercedes AMG, for whom Nico took his first ever Grand Prix pole position this afternoon. It was a peculiar qualifying session, in which the to-ing and fro-ing of grip levels was abnormally unpredictable. During Q3, the air and track temperatures cooled rapidly as the sky overhead became suddenly overcast, and the circuit became appreciably slower as a result. Nico, who had already cut a very good lap early in the session, was therefore unassailable. Jenson, who went out later, found that the track surface had become much less grippy than it had been beforehand, and the inevitable result was a slower-than-expected lap time from him. But that wasn't his fault; pretty much everyone who was on track at the end of Q3 either recorded a slower lap-time than they'd hoped for, or indeed aborted it, as Lewis did. Tomorrow, though, we're confident that we'll have two competitive race cars, and, from fifth and seventh on the grid respectively, Jenson and Lewis will be approaching the race with their customary controlled combativeness.”

Monisha Kaltenborn, Sauber-Ferrari (CEO):
“What a fantastic performance from both of our drivers! This has been the best qualifying result for a long time and a great achievement for the whole team. Finally we are in a position after qualifying to exploit the full potential of the Sauber C31-Ferrari in the race, as we can start from much better positions than in previous races. Congratulations to the whole team!”

Giampaolo Dall'Ara, Sauber-Ferrari (Head of Track Engineering):
“We are obviously happy with this qualifying result. It has been our goal for some time to put both cars into the top ten, which we finally managed to do. Almost everything went well apart from Sergio's final run in which he complained about too much untersteer. This is something we have to look into. Kamui did a fantastic job and his result is beyond our expectations. Taking into consideration Lewis Hamilton's penalty, he will start third and, looking at our recent race performance, we can be very optimistic for tomorrow.”

Alan Permane, Lotus-Renault (Director of Trackside Operations):
“Kimi is where the car should be and I think he's reasonably happy with his performance. He did an excellent job through qualifying and considering the build up of this weekend I think we can be reasonably happy. Romain's absolute pace is very similar to Kimi's but qualifying is hungry for tyres if you can't get the pace straight away. Kimi got through to Q3 with just one set of soft tyres, but Romain required three sets, meaning he then didn't have a fresh set for his Q3 lap. Romain's got the pace, we just need to unlock that pace on the hard tyre in a qualifying situation. As Romain didn't have a new set of soft tyres, it was always going to be a tough ask to get a blinding lap in the final session, especially as everyone else who got through to Q3 did have a new set. It was unrealistic to expect Romain to qualify higher than tenth in this scenario, but we sent him out anyway. We soon saw from the split times that there was no possibility we brought him in to save a lap on the tyres for the race.”

Christian Horner, Red Bull-Renault (Team Principal):
“An ultimately disappointing qualifying. Having looked quick and competitive on the hard tyre, it was a shame for Sebastian to miss Q3 by a very small margin. Mark topped the times in Q2, but then unfortunately he couldn't repeat that lap in Q3, so we are P6 and P11 on the grid tomorrow, after Lewis' penalty. It wasn't our expectation, but the top ten has quite a different shape to it here, so it should make an interesting race.”

Cyril Dumont, Red Bull-Renault (Renault Engineer):
“Of course disappointing today, we saw that in Q2 it was pretty tight, we had eleven cars separated by three tenths. Unfortunately we were eleventh with Sebastian, who missed out on Q3 by only about 500ths I guess , so it's disappointing. I also think it's a disappointing for Mark, as he couldn't repeat his Q2 lap in Q3. So, Mark will start in P6 with Hamilton's penalty. We have the two Mercedes in front of us, which don't always have the best race pace, so we can still have a good race tomorrow, as we normally have good race pace.”

Stefano Domenicali, Ferrari (Team Principal):
“Whoever understands that is very clever! I challenge anyone to produce a rational explanation of how this afternoon's qualifying went, not just for ourselves, but also as far as almost all the other cars are concerned. We went from having very small gaps in Q2, with eleven drivers in around three tenths of one another, to much bigger differences in Q3, with very strong fluctuations in some cases. Given our current situation and above all, the fact that at this track, the major weaknesses of the F2012 seem to be particularly marked, this result is an accurate reflection of where we are in terms of outright performance, even if we have seen that later, in the race, things can change. Sure, it's not what we were looking for at the start of the season, but today we have to make a virtue of necessity. With a grid like tomorrow's we can expect an even more open race than we might have done going into the weekend. Our aim is clear: to get both cars home in the points and make the most of any opportunity that comes along during the race.”

Pat Fry, Ferrari (Technical Director):
“This result is in line with our potential in this initial part of the season, but the way we got there was rather surprising. I am struggling to remember the last time Q2 was as close as this afternoon's, with eleven drivers all within less than four tenths and then, a few minutes later, significant gaps reappearing between the top and the bottom in Q3. From what we can understand after a quick first analysis, the optimum useage window for the tyres Pirelli has brought here is so tight that it only takes equally small changes in temperature to significantly change car behaviour. After a third free practice session that was particularly difficult, we made some changes to the set-up on Felipe's car, however, they alone cannot explain the improvement we saw in qualifying. Having said that, now we must think only of preparing as well as possible for a race that will be long and stressful, especially for the tyres. No rain is forecast for the afternoon, therefore it will be difficult to repeat the amazing result from Sepang, but all the same, we must be always ready to exploit every opportunity, which is the norm with a team that does not have the most competitive package in the field. We have the possibility of getting both drivers into the points and this must be our target: we will gladly take anything extra that might come our way!”

Mark Gillan, Williams-Renault (Chief Operations Engineer):
“Track conditions were good this morning and the car balance was better, with both drivers feeling their cars much improved from Friday's running. We went through the first session of qualifying without too much difficulty but unfortunately both cars didn't manage to get into the final session, with Pastor and Bruno finishing 13th and 14th respectively. Despite the disappointment of not getting the cars in the top 10, we are looking forward to tomorrow's race as we believe that our race pace will be strong.”

Robert Fernley, Force India-Mercedes (Deputy Team Principal):
“We always knew that reaching Q3 would be an ambitious target for China, but at the same time we have shown that the developments we brought to the car this week are already paying off and closing the gap. I think we are in good shape for tomorrow and I believe we can be up there battling for points in the race. We were pleased with our performance during the long runs on Friday and the tyres are lasting well, so hopefully we can build on that in the race.”

Laurent Mekies, Toro Rosso-Ferrari (Chief Engineer):
“Obviously, this was a disappointing qualifying for us and today we clearly lacked the pace we needed to be in the fight. We now have to look at where we lost this performance. We made quite a few changes to the cars from yesterday and during this morning's free practice and we must assess where we did not go in the right direction. So far this weekend, we explored a quite different direction in terms of set-up and maybe it cost something in terms of ultimate pace in qualifying. However, it was a job that needed to be done and we must work out how to improve it for tomorrow. However, I believe the situation for the race is still very much open for us to get a reasonable result, as the gaps are in fact relatively small.”

Thierry Salvi, Caterham-Renault (Renault Sport F1 Support Leader):
“From the engine perspective the conditions today obviously suit us better and we saw that the strategies we were running worked. Today it was about maximising outright top speed over the two straights whilst giving the drivers the engine characteristics they look for in the slower corners and we can be reasonably pleased that we have achieved both objectives.”

Mark Smith, Caterham-Renault (Technical Director):
“The team here in China and back at the factory have been working hard on some specific areas, particularly on ensuring we can get the most out of the tyres when it matters. Today we saw positive results on both cars, and having tweaked the setups overnight we saw Heikki record a time just under 8/10ths from the car ahead, which is a step forward for us in qualifying. Last year we were almost 1.5 seconds behind the car in front in Q1 so that shows we are progressing. Now we turn our focus to the race and the clear aim is to keep up the race pace we showed in Australia and Malaysia and make sure both cars cross the finish line.”

John Booth, Marussia-Cosworth (Team Principal):
“Today has been relentless as we have fought hard to recover the positive form which we saw in FP2 yesterday. As appears to have been the case with a lot of drivers throughout the field during FP3, we also suffered a large shift in balance overnight with the increased track temperatures we have experienced today. Whilst this didn't seem to be as severe on Charles' car, it was certainly a worrying factor for Timo. All credit to Timo and his crew for working through these issues in FP3, and particularly in the break between sessions, to allow him to come back with a better balanced car in qualifying. Charles continues to impress us at this early stage in his F1 career. His best sector times from today strung together would have significantly reduced his deficit to Timo and this will be his focus going into the race tomorrow. I think we're all looking forward to what should be a straightforward day tomorrow - without the threat of rain - which will allow us to evaluate our progress further.”

Toni Cuquerella, HRT-Cosworth (Technical Director):
“We're satisfied with today's result and, in general, with the work the team and drivers put in which, added to the upgrades we've brought to this Grand Prix, have enabled us to qualify comfortably inside the 107%. In fact, the better of the two cars is at a 104.4%. We're functioning as a team, with normality and without major problems and that in itself is satisfying and proves that we're starting to be at the level which we should have been at the start of the season. From here we have to continue improving as our rivals aren't far away. Tomorrow's objective is to finish with both cars and for the performance shown in qualifying to translate into the race also.”

Paul Hembery, Pirelli (Motorsport Director):
“We'd like to congratulate Nico Rosberg and Mercedes on their achievements today. The way that Nico, Michael and the Mercedes used the tyres was superb. The small gaps between the drivers during the first two sessions showed the tight level of competition that we can expect tomorrow, with the difference between the two compounds still expected to be between 0.6-0.8 seconds per lap and two to three pit stops expected per car. Once more, the Sauber team did an excellent job with the tyres, and fourth-fastest time in qualifying for Kamui certainly reflects that. Tyre degradation in China is traditionally quite high: the teams were clearly trying to save tyres where they could today and tyre strategy is clearly going to be crucial. There is only a low probability of rain expected tomorrow, but the track could be a bit damp in the morning, so we might see some humid conditions at the very start of the race.”