Santander British Grand Prix sees two 150º Italia cars on the second row of the grid, with Fernando Alonso third and Felipe Massa fourth. The following explains the Pirelli tyre useage during the session: one set of Primes each in Q1; Alonso Intermediate and Soft in Q2, Massa just Soft; two sets of Soft each in Q3, with both men aborting their second run as the rain intensified.

Red Bull Racing

Christian Horner, Red Bull team principal

“After so much off circuit focus, it was a relief to finally get into the Grand Prix weekend in very difficult conditions. Both drivers did a great job to navigate though Q1 and Q2 and the first run proved to be the crucial in Q3; it was nip and tuck between the drivers and Mark produced an excellent lap to claim his second pole and the team’s ninth of the season. We can see that Ferrari is pretty close, but today was a huge performance for the team.”

Cyril Dumont, Renault Sport

“So, first of all I’m really pleased for everyone in the factory for this result – it’s very good for Red Bull and for Renault. I think the session was quite difficult with all the climatic changes, so it’s great to be one and two again. I think engine-wise it was a difficult weekend also with all the changing technical directives that were issued. Even with the final rule clarification, we got this good result, so let’s see tomorrow when we will aim to convert these positions into points.”

Scuderia Ferrari

Pat Fry, Ferrari chassis director

“I’d say this was a good qualifying for us: to be third and fourth on the grid is a nice result, especially when compared to some Saturdays earlier in the season. In Q3, at first I did not get a good lap, making a few mistakes: I thought I could make up for it on my second run, but the rain arrived and it was no longer possible. Fourth place is therefore positive, especially as I was able to keep both McLarens behind me. From what we can see, the car seems competitive. Sure, we don’t have much to go on, especially on full tanks and in terms of how the tyres will perform on a long run. It will be a bit like racing in the dark with so many things only coming to light during the race. How much was our performance affected by the new rules concerning the use of exhaust gases? All the cars, ours included, have lost aerodynamic downforce to some extent, some more than others, but I would say that the progress we have made compared to the others owes more to the updates we have introduced. How else can one explain the fact that, for the first time this year, we have also managed to get the Hard tyres to work in a correct fashion.”

Vodafone McLaren-Mercedes

Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren team principal

“Clearly, we’d intended to qualify better than fifth and 10th for our home grand prix, so inevitably today’s qualifying session was a disappointing one. It’s been a difficult day, blighted by a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in relation to the regulations, and compromised by equally changeable weather conditions. That combination made things difficult for everyone, and the shape of tomorrow’s grid was always likely to be tricky to predict as a result. But tomorrow is what really matters, and in Jenson and Lewis we’ve got two of the most skilful and most combative racers in the sport today. I know how dearly they’d love to be able to put on a good show in front of the most knowledgeable and most supportive spectators in Formula One, and you can be absolutely certain that they’ll be giving it 100 per cent as soon as the five red lights go out on the startline gantry at 1.00pm tomorrow – and so will everyone else at Vodafone McLaren Mercedes.”

Force India F1 Team

Dr Vijay Mallya, Force India chairman & team principal

“To be starting the British Grand Prix from P6 and P11 is an excellent result for Force India and we can be very pleased with the performance of the car today. The weather conditions have been challenging for everyone over the last couple of days, but we’ve remained focussed on the job and found a good balance with the cars despite the lack of dry running. I’m very proud of what Paul has achieved today. He has come here extremely confident and delivered an outstanding performance. Adrian, too, has felt very comfortable and we are now well placed to get both cars in the points tomorrow. Silverstone is always one of the highlights of the season and a special race for Force India. It’s the home of our factory and a strong result here would be a fitting reward for the team’s hard work so far this year.”

AT&T Williams F1

Sam Michael, Williams technical director

“It was good to have one car in the top ten today. We ran all the new parts on both cars – the exhaust, diffuser, front wing and suspension, which is always rewarding and gives the factory a clear direction for the forthcoming races. We’re running to the FIA’s 10% throttle requirement here which is something that will be reviewed again before Nürburgring. Seventh was a great result for Pastor in conditions that were more difficult than usual, and he’s now in a strong position for the start of the race. Rubens was on it as well, but track conditions didn’t go his way this afternoon.”

Sauber F1 Team

Peter Sauber, Sauber team principal

“It has become even more difficult to get into the top ten, and this means you are going to be even happier when you make it. Congratulations to Kamui and his crew, as today timing was also very important. Sergio’s 12th place is also alright, and he has saved a set of fresh tyres for the race.”

James Key, Sauber technical director

“I think all in all it was a reasonable day. This morning we had the first dry running of the weekend, so there was a lot of work to do. A lot of the test items from Friday had to be carried over to a very busy third free practice, but we pretty much proved everything we needed to, which was good. In qualifying it was tricky, as the conditions were very, very variable and quite difficult to predict, even though we had radar showing that the rain was quite light. It would have been great to get both cars into Q3, but we got one so we can’t complain at all. Sergio did a great job to be 12th, and Kamui did very well to get through. Our position is okay, although it would have been nice to be a little bit further ahead, but we know our race pace is very strong compared to our qualifying pace so we will be looking to make the most of our starting positions tomorrow.“

Mercedes GP Petronas

Ross Brawn, Mercedes GP team principal

“We have had very limited dry running with our new aerodynamic package this weekend, as well as having to come to terms with the change in engine strategies. Rain in the final sector prevented Nico from achieving a better lap time at the end of Q3, which would have made a reasonable difference to our starting position. Michael lost out by less than seven-hundredths in a very close battle in Q2, but it was a patchy qualifying session during which we didn’t catch the track at the right times. Today was the first step in utilising the new exhaust designs and technologies, and we are still finding our way.”

Norbert Haug, vice-president, Mercedes-Benz Motorsport

“Nico posted his fastest Q3 time on a set of used option tyres which had completed an out-lap earlier in the session, and was considerably quicker with his new options in the first two sectors of his final attempt. His two split times were good enough to suggest he could have finished P5, but he had to abort the lap in the last sector because of rain. Michael missed out on Q3 by less than a tenth of a second. Starting from ninth and 13th places on the grid, we did not achieve the maximum possible today, but nevertheless we will fight for better results tomorrow.”

Lotus-Renault GP

James Allison, Renault technical director

“The alterations to the engine rules have clearly upset the order somewhat, but that’s not where all our focus lies. The fact is that for the past three or four races we have been on a trend that is far from impressive and, at this event, we have been showing far less performance than we should be showing with our car and of the efforts of our team and partners. We need to pick ourselves up from here and get a lot of the forthcoming developments, because P14 and P16 are simply not good enough. We missed the top ten by a very small margin today but we’ve got upgrades to come for Germany which are worth three-tenths, even more tenths for the race after that. So, we’ve got to grind that out and put the car in a position that is more reflective of where we should be. We’ve benefited from the fact that we’ve saved an extra set of tyres, so there’s a silver lining to the cloud! The tyres will be precious tomorrow, there’s no doubt of that. The soft (option) tyre is the right one to be racing on, and the degradation is high, so rather like in Spain and at other tracks this season having a virgin set is quite a good thing. We’ve got to get a good start and then make the most of the leverage that things like that extra set will give us.”

Team Lotus

Thierry Salvi, Renault Sport F1 support leader

“This morning in P3 we took a step forward compared to yesterday because we had much improved weather conditions and that definitely helped us in qualifying. We were able to finalise our engine mapping comparisons and focus on the effect of the new regulations which allowed us to make the right decisions for qualifying. That was obviously the right strategy because when you look at Heikki’s lap time in Q1 it was very good and that enabled him to get into Q2. Jarno was not so lucky because of the weather – it’s always difficult when the conditions change that quickly, but for the whole team this has been a good day.”

Tony Fernandes, Lotus team principal

“I am very happy with today’s performance. To run like this at Silverstone, where the Team Lotus dream began when I met Mike here, and put a car into Q2 in only our second year is a big achievement. Heikki gave it 100 percent and Q2 is a deserved reward for his efforts today. I am a bit disappointed for Jarno – we’ll have to find out what happened to him because there was quite a big gap between him and Heikki, but now I am looking forward to the race tomorrow. Our race pace has been good all season, so the aim is to maintain our much improved reliability record and see what happens in the race itself.”

Mike Gascoyne, Lotus chief technical officer

“I am delighted with our performance today, and especially pleased for Heikki. In conditions like that it is a good result for the whole team to get the strategy calls right and Heikki did exactly what he needed to do to get into Q2, and he gave it his best shot in that session as well so full credit to him. On Jarno’s side he has been struggling all day with the balance so I am obviously disappointed for him, but tomorrow in the race I am sure it will be different and he will be able to attack the group in front. Overall this has been a good couple of days for us. The team has reacted well to all the changes we have had had to make with the amendments to the regulations and now we need to round off this weekend with a strong two-car finish and take the fight to the teams immediately in front of us.”

Scuderia Toro Rosso

Giorgio Ascanelli, Toro Rosso technical director

“Of course it’s disappointing not to make the cut into Q2. This morning, the drivers did not get much of an opportunity to run on low fuel, as we concentrated on race preparation, so we started qualifying sending them out on Prime tyres for a few laps to get a feel for a light car. Then, once they came in to switch to the Option, the rain came and caught us out, which meant there was no chance to improve the lap times.”

Marussia Virgin Racing

John Booth, Virgin team principal

“With better conditions today we were able to start our dry set-up work and tyre evaluations, although FP3 wasn’t without rain and this did mean that we haven’t quite got all the data we required from the tyres. Timo performed well in FP3 but was never really with the way the car felt, particularly compared with the well-balanced car that he had in Valencia. Working with his engineers he made some fairly comprehensive set-up changes before qualifying, which is always a risk. However he was happier with the car in his first run and posted an impressive lap. The rain at the start of FP3 cut short a planned long run for Jerome, which would have given us more tyre data. However, Jerome used the opportunity to complete some set-up work that ultimately both cars benefited from. It’s a shame Jerome didn’t get the second run in qualifying, as I’m sure he would have improved.”

HRT F1 Team

Colin Kolles, HRT team principal

“It was a difficult day because a lot of rain came down in FP3 and it wasn’t easy to get the set up right for qualifying. Obviously, also during qualifying it started to rain and, unfortunately, we had the wrong timing and were unable to do a second run. So this is why the result is quite disappointing. Tomorrow we have to finish the race and we will see what will be the end. Today I would have expected more; we knew that it would be difficult because we had traction problems and have a lack of downforce. We had some new parts on the car but, unfortunately, it was difficult to get the right timing and to react in the right way under these circumstances. If tomorrow we have what we had today then I will be happy. In free practice it’s better to have dry conditions; in qualifying it’s better to have consistent conditions, either rain or dry, and all this didn’t happen. For us, starting at the end of the grid, the best would be to have heavy rain like in Canada for the race.”