For fans of Grand Prix who have no particular loyalty to a team or driver, it has to be said that the 2011 Formula 1 season has delivered plenty of excitement on Sunday afternoons, even if one team has dominated the standings and won both titles. However, a look at the results sheet or the times from qualifying throughout the year would lead anyone not watching the action to assume it had been a dull affair. The Brazilian GP Qualifying sheet is no exception to that rule, with the Red Bull’s monopolising the front row, Vettel taking yet another pole ahead of team-mate Webber. Row 2 features the silver cars of this year’s silver medal team, the McLarens lining up with Button third and Hamilton fourth. And so, tomorrow, it will be pretty much a reflex action for Fernando Alonso to steer his 150º Italia onto the fifth spot of the grid. Mercedes seem to have found some extra speed and so Rosberg lines up next to the Spanish Ferrari driver, leaving Felipe Massa to get the benefit of the clean side of the track, seventh on the grid for his home race, which he has won twice before.

Red Bull Racing

Christian Horner

“An awesome achievement by Sebastian and the team today. It’s a new record in Formula One, which is a small piece of history for Sebastian and is thoroughly deserved. He shared the record with Nigel for two weeks and he now has some fairly illustrious names behind him, so a great performance. A great performance also from Mark Webber today to lock out the front row ahead of what I’m sure will be a really exciting final Grand Prix of 2011.”

Cyril Dumont, Renault

“So another record today for Sebastian with 15 pole positions. He broke the last record from Mansell, which is fantastic. It’s also fantastic for Mark to lock out the front row and for the team to finish its Saturday season with a one-two – it reflects the performance of the car, which was been amazing. I hope that tomorrow we will transform it into a strong finish, it would be great to finish the season with a one-two.”

Vodafone McLaren-Mercedes

Martin Whitmarsh, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes

“Perhaps we didn’t quite get the best out of the option tyre in Q3 this afternoon – it could have been a tyre pressure issue although we’re not yet sure about that – but we still put both our cars on the second row which is a pretty decent result. Jenson nailed a particularly impressive lap to end up in third place – his best qualifying performance ever at Interlagos. Lewis delivered a very good lap too, just two-tenths shy of Jenson’s best. He experimented with driving two flying laps in Q3 – a fast-ish one followed by a really hot one in an attempt to get more out of the Option – but in the event it didn’t appear to confer any benefit over the conventional one-flying-lap approach adopted by Jenson. Looking forward to tomorrow, it may well rain – and, if it does, the race will surely be incident-packed and therefore unpredictable. We geared both our cars with the probability of a wet race in mind, in fact. But, rain or no rain, Jenson and Lewis are both hungry to notch up Vodafone McLaren Mercedes’ seventh victory of the season, and we’re confident that both their race cars will be fully competitive on the day.”

Scuderia Ferrari

Stefano Domenicali

“If the numbers and the equation are always the same, there is no reason for them to deliver a different sum! We ended development on this car several months ago and everything we are doing now is aimed at next year. In the meantime, we are trying to squeeze out the maximum from what we have got, in order to finish this season in the best way we can. The outcome of that therefore is that today it was difficult to expect anything more than a fifth place, don’t you think? Fernando gave it his all on his final lap, getting very close to the McLarens. Felipe probably paid the price for having only one set of new tyres left to run in Q3: if he’d had one more, he would have also managed to make it onto the third row. We go into this final race of a very long championship in the same way in which we have tackled the others: with concentration and determination aimed at getting the best possible result. The weather forecast for tomorrow is for a high chance of rain: in that case, anything can happen and it will be crucial to react properly to any eventualities that might arise.”

Pat Fry

“Honestly, there’s nothing much new to say at the end of the final qualifying session of 2011. We are aware we have the third-best car in the pack: the consequence of this is that, if nothing strange happens, then fifth place is the most logical result. Then, taking into account that we did not manage to find a perfect balance on the two cars and that here we have seen a Mercedes very much on the ball, we must look at this result as a glass that’s half full, considering the gaps to Fernando of those directly ahead and behind him in the classification. Felipe had to use an additional set of softs in Q2, which definitely penalised him in Q3. Given the weather forecast, we can expect an eventful race. However, if it is run in the dry, then it will be interesting to see how the tyres behave, considering that the track conditions seem to change significantly even when there is not much of a big change in temperature. Our aim will be the same as ever: to fight for a place on the podium, while trying to help Fernando to reach second place in the drivers’ championship.”

Mercedes GP Petronas

Ross Brawn

“We had a reasonable final qualifying session of the season today. There was a threat of rain throughout, which meant we ran slightly earlier than we ultimately needed to in some of the sessions to be on the safe side. Nico’s run in Q2 was very impressive, and that performance potential augurs well for the race. Michael took a measured approach to Q3, in order to save a new set of tyres, and he is in a good position strategically. We know how good he has been on the first lap this year, so we’re looking forward to finding out what will be possible in the race. Rain is still forecast for tomorrow but the same was true of today, so we are working with a measure of uncertainty. I’ll know it’s raining when the top of my head gets wet…”

Norbert Haug, vice-president, Mercedes-Benz Motorsport

“Nico looked strong in Q2 when he set the second fastest time, which was about half a second quicker than his Q3 time later on. The second row of the grid, instead of the third, could have been possible today for him. Nevertheless, we should be in good shape for the race tomorrow when rain is predicted, which could mix up the field a bit. We still need to investigate what happened to Michael, as he was not happy with his car and tyre combination after looking strong during all three practice sessions. In tomorrow’s final race of the season, both Nico and Michael will be aiming for a respectable result, similar to what we achieved in recent races.”

Sahara Force India F1 Team

Robert Fernley, deputy team principal

“I think overall we can be pleased with today’s qualifying result. We were confident of getting both cars in the top ten, but Paul has been suffering with a top speed issue since this morning, which we are still investigating. Without that issue we could well have seen both cars in Q3. As for Adrian, he delivered another excellent qualifying performance, setting consistent lap times and squeezing the maximum from the car. For tomorrow we’re all looking at the weather forecast because there’s a high risk of rain. Whatever happens we are well placed to come away with points for both cars to hopefully secure sixth place in the championship and get Adrian in the top ten of the drivers’ championship.”

Lotus-Renault GP

Alan Permane, Renault chief race engineer

“We are pleased for Bruno as that was a strong qualifying performance for him during his home race weekend. He put in a couple of good laps when it mattered and he’s deserving of that position. It was unfortunate for Vitaly; he didn’t get his lap together when it counted, but generally we are happy with the performance of the team and are now looking forward to tomorrow’s race. We altered a few things on Bruno’s car, including some camber and front wing changes. The car obviously felt better for him in qualifying than it did in this morning’s session. The forecast for tomorrow suggests there are likely to be some thundery showers so that will give us all something to think about and could make it an interesting race to finish off the season.”

AT&T Williams F1

Mark Gillan, chief operations engineer

“This morning’s final practice went well and with further set-up work the general balance and pace of the car improved steadily through the session. Going into qualifying, the threat of rain increased pushing us to run earlier than we normally would have done. Rubens progressed into Q2 but unfortunately Pastor didn’t get a clean lap and finished P18. Rubens had a good, clean lap on his new set of soft tyres in Q2 to finish a credible P12.”

Scuderia Toro Rosso

Laurent Mekies

“The day did not start well for us, as Sebastien was unable to complete a single timed lap in the morning, because of an hydraulic problem. It meant that, in qualifying, he had to adapt immediately to quite a different car to the one he drove yesterday, because of the choices we made since then from a set-up point of view. He tried to get into a rhythm as quickly as possible, but with the field being so tight, everything matters and clearly he paid the price for us not having done a better job this morning. Jaime’s position is a fairly accurate indication of our level of competitiveness, as he is three thousandths of a second away from 12th place, which is where the car belongs here today. He also did a good job so far this weekend in adapting to the car, as we changed his set-up quite a few times. The threat of rain which was falling two kilometres from the track added to the sense of urgency in the session, making it quite exciting. I think we are in a decent enough position to do a good job tomorrow, when it will be up to us to make it happen.”

Sauber F1 Team

Peter Sauber, team principal

“After qualifying, Toro Rosso is in front of our cars, but the race is tomorrow and we will fight hard in the race to turn this around.”

Giampaolo Dall’Ara, head of track engineering

“This is obviously not the result we wanted, but it looks as if this was the limit today. In the end, both our drivers were at the same level. We had a trouble-free session, but the performance just didn’t allow us to finish higher up on the grid. For tomorrow there is a high chance of rain, and we will definitely be ready to make up ground in the race.”

Team Lotus

Mike Gascoyne, chief technical officer

“That was a strong end to qualifying for this season. This morning we were having some issues getting the pace out of the soft tyres but this afternoon we turned that around and Heikki in particular got everything he could out of the car. Jarno was a little less happy with the balance but for me this is a good way to finish qualifying this year. Throughout the second half of the season we have moved closer to the group in front and that was particularly evident today, so the aim for tomorrow is clear – have a strong race and give ourselves a successful last race of 2011.”

Tony Fernandes, team principal

“What a great way to end the last qualifying session for Team Lotus. We were within a second of cars right up to 11th place, and just over 0.4 off Williams, so to bring to an end our qualifying for 2011, having made up that amount of time, is a real achievement. People forget that we do not have KERS this year. If we had KERS, as we do next season, would clearly be fighting in the midfield, so I am very happy with how far we have come in such a short amount of time. Our next qualifying session will be as Caterham F1 Team and that is a whole new chapter for us, something we are all very excited about and if we can maintain the progress we have shown in our first two years we will be right on course to achieve our long-term goals.”

Thierry Salvi, Renault Sport F1 Support Leader

“The challenge for us here has been to help maximise the potential of the new rear wing and DRS system on the cars. The update is a big step forward for the team and it means we have had to work on the ratios and find the right balance between the settings we use for qualifying and the race. That is what the top teams ahead have had to do all year and for us that is the first time we really had to work in that area this season, so it has been a good challenge, and a sign of how far the team has come. It looks like it has worked out because the feedback from the drivers has been positive and the result today is what we were hoping for, so this goes down as a good result for the whole team.”

HRT F1 Team

Colin Kolles, team principal

“Both drivers did a very good job today in qualifying. It has been our best qualifying session this season. I think we could have done even better if the cars would have been released in the right time frame in order to avoid traffic and to give the drivers the maximum laps. We are ahead of both Virgins and closer than ever to Lotus which is very positive and this reflects the improved performance of the car in the last races. It seems that the chances of rain for tomorrow’s race are quite high so we have to be ready for that too and try to finish the season on a good note.”

Marussia Virgin Racing

John Booth, team principal

“A disappointing afternoon for the team and not what we hoped for going into this weekend. Timo had struggled with the balance of his car this morning and so needed to do some significant changes for qualifying, which is far from desirable although his balance did improve as a result. Unfortunately Timo’s second run was disturbed by Buemi on what would have been his quickest lap and this was unfortunate. Jerome had a good morning and he was very pleased with his lap in FP3, which even before correcting for fuel was much better than his lap in Q1 which was plagued by oversteer. At some points today the weather did look like it would play a part in the proceedings, however this was not the case. Looking to tomorrow again, the threat of rain is there and we will be looking to gain back the places on the grid to finish the season as strongly as we can.”