Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro recorded its best qualifying performance of the year with Fernando Alonso second and Felipe Massa third, behind pole man Sebastian Vettel. It was a very evenly matched session, with the two Ferrari men always frontrunners – Alonso was first in Q1 and Massa the same in Q2 – never before as close to the Red Bull as today. Rain could be a factor in tomorrow’s race, which is yet another unknown in a situation that is already difficult to read.

Red Bull Racing

Christian Horner, Red Bull team principal

“It’s fantastic to get our first pole position in Montreal. It was a great performance by Sebastian again today, completing two laps in Q3 that were good enough for pole. The Ferrari’s have been very quick here and we expect them and McLaren to be a big challenge tomorrow. Mark made a good recovery without the benefit of KERS, which we know is worth a couple of tenths here. It was a great performance from him and he will start from the second row at a track where you can overtake.”

Cyril Dumont, Renault

“So, Sebastian is on pole again; congratulations to him. It’s a bit of a shame for Mark, he wasn’t able to run this morning and then going into qualifying he had an issue with KERS. It’s a shame as I think he would have been on the front row. Regarding the package, this circuit is
not supposed to suit our car and engine, but we showed that’s not the case. Hopefully we will have a dry race tomorrow without any weather changes, but we will see how it goes.”

Scuderia Ferrari

Stefano Domenicali

“For the first time this year we managed to fight for the very top places on the grid, right down to the final second and, for once, the gap to pole position is reasonable. It’s our best qualifying of the season and it’s great to have both cars on the front two rows, one of them with a clear view of the track ahead: this result is encouraging, because it means that our efforts are taking us in the right direction. Definitely, at the moment, our car is better suited to the characteristics of the ‘Gilles Villeneuve’ circuit than it is to the one at Montmelo, but it’s no coincidence that we have been competitive right from the start of the weekend. Now however, we must concentrate on preparing for a race that looks like being very unpredictable. Historically, Canada produces an action packed Grand Prix, with the Safety Car usually required on track and lots of overtaking opportunities: if you add to this scenario the unknown factor concerning the weather, then it’s clear why tomorrow’s 70 laps will seem very, very long for everyone.”

Pat Fry

“We are pleased with this result, the best since the championship began. The credit for that goes to everyone: the drivers who did not make any driving errors on an unforgiving track, the team that prepared the cars with great care and everyone at Maranello who worked with alacrity to make up the performance gap that separates us from the best. However, we have yet to bring home any points from this Grand Prix, so we must stay completely focussed on preparations for tomorrow’s race, which will be long and unpredictable. The rain could play a part and we will have to be ready to react in the right way to any eventuality. On behalf of the whole team, my thoughts go out to Marco Oliva, one of our mechanics who was injured during a pit stop today: these things can happen in our sport and we hope Marco gets better very soon.”

Vodafone McLaren-Mercedes

Martin Whitmarsh, Team principal, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes

“Perhaps our cars had a little bit too much downforce for today’s qualifying session, which was dry; but, if it rains tomorrow, which is what the weather forecast tells us it will probably do, then we should be in good shape. However, wet or dry, we know that Lewis and Jenson are both fantastic racers – and brilliant overtakers – and we therefore expect them to challenge competitively tomorrow from their respective starting positions of fifth and seventh. There have been 47 Canadian Grands Prix in all, and McLaren has won 11 of them. The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is a great racetrack, and it often produces an eventful race. So let’s see what happens tomorrow.”

Mercedes GP Petronas

Ross Brawn

“We had very solid qualifying session today with both the drivers and team doing a good job. We have given ourselves a decent chance with the tyres and have a set of new options left for both drivers for the race, so overall it was a pretty decent afternoon. We know for the future that we have to find some lap time but so far, we have made the best of what we have this weekend.”

Norbert Haug

“It was a respectable performance from our team and drivers. Nico in sixth place was eight-tenths behind Vettel’s pole time, while Michael was five-hundredths, and two positions, behind his team-mate. In practice this morning, we focused on race simulation work and our lap times looked quite ok; as a result, we saved tyres in qualifying. With two runs in Q3, we might have been able to climb a position or two on the grid. However, a fresh set of tyres for tomorrow will be even more beneficial – even if stays dry, of course.”

Lotus-Renault GP

Alan Permane

“In a way, we’re pleased to have both cars in the top 10 today. It shows that we’ve uncovered the problems we had in Monaco, and that the solutions we’ve brought here are the right ones. However, we can’t be happy with a fifth row. We need to work harder and get more performance out of the car. It’s difficult to say, really. However, it’s true to think that the weather conditions could play a big role in tomorrow’s race. This is the reason why we have chosen two different set-ups. Even if their lap times were very close today, Nick and Vitaly are carrying different levels of downforce. As you know, when it rains, we’re only allowed to change the cooling of the cars. Nick will carry more downforce than Vitaly tomorrow and, depending on the weather, this could be a very strong position to be in. Their cars are not identical but they did a good job and could play on different strategies tomorrow.”

Force India F1 Team

Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal

“The high-speed layout of this track always seems to suit our cars and once again this year we’ve been running in or close to the top ten in most of the sessions. Paul has done a good job of learning the track and has steadily built up his pace throughout practice. He only narrowly missed out on making it through to Q3, which is a great effort considering this is his first visit here. Adrian has done well to recover from a lack of running following his problems yesterday, although he lost a few tenths on his final lap, without which he could have been alongside Paul. Overall I think we can be pleased with our showing today, which leaves us well place to bring home a strong result tomorrow.”

AT&T Williams F1

Sam Michael, Technical Director

We weren’t quick enough for the top ten today but Pastor did well to get the most out of his car. He probably could have gone better but he ran out of KERS on his fastest lap as we weren’t able to re-charge it quickly enough. Rubens had some brake warm-up issues on his car and so he wasn’t able to get his best lap together. This race always presents opportunities, however, and the team will be pushing hard for more points.

Sauber F1 Team

Peter Sauber, Team Principal

“First of all I’d like to thank the mechanics who have had a lot of work this weekend, and did a fantastic job to get two cars ready for qualifying. Kamui finished qualifying in P13, and that’s the same position he had in Monaco where he was able to deliver a great result. Considering Pedro only learned yesterday after one o’clock that he was going to race this weekend, he did an excellent job making it into Q2. Congratulations!”

James Key, Technical Director

“We had a busy morning to try new set-ups on both cars. For Kamui the priority was to help with the kerbs and warming up the tyres. He just felt a lack of grip yesterday, so we did a lot of work last night to try to improve the car in that respect. It got a little bit better, but we still struggled with making the tyres come in early enough for a good performance in qualifying. That’s something we needed to work on in the latter part of FP3. For Pedro it was important to get some more laps in the car and learn a little bit more about both tyre compounds, as well as the car’s behaviour, the systems on the car and the set-up changes we made for him overnight. For Q1 we put him on two sets of super softs, because he didn’t get a full run in the morning, and he had no feeling for the super soft tyre in terms of grip. He did a good job making it into Q2, where he ended just three tenths behind his team mate. A really good effort considering he hadn’t driven in race conditions since last season. It was a very short call yesterday, and we thank him for all his efforts. Kamui did well to get the tyres to work a little better, although his best lap wasn’t quite optimal. I believe there’s more to come for tomorrow. I don’t think we could have made it into Q3. We are not a hundred percent satisfied, but under the circumstances it’s still okay where we are. The race is a totally different story.”

Scuderia Toro Rosso

Giorgio Ascanelli

“The result of qualifying is pretty much where I expected us to be, although maybe a little bit better than expected with Sebastien. With Jaime, we are still struggling, as we have not found a way of giving him a car in which he can trust. In terms of race pace, free practice has shown we are in reasonably good shape. I am hoping for a dry race tomorrow, because if it rains, I think we will be at a disadvantage.”

Team Lotus

Thierry Salvi, Renault Sport F1 Support Leader

“We can be pleased with the performance today but it was more difficult than yesterday to extract the maximum pace from the car. I think we have some more work to do to get the most out of it but as there is only a small gap to the teams ahead and we have had good speed in the races all season I think that is encouraging for tomorrow.”

Mike Gascoyne, Chief Technical Officer

“That was a good qualifying session for us and overall it has been a very solid weekend so far for the whole team. Both drivers drove well in qualifying – Jarno struggled a bit with the brakes and Heikki couldn’t improve on his second set of tyres as he reported that they had lower grip levels than the first, but we finished the session with a small gap to the cars ahead and I think we will have a good race tomorrow.”

Tony Fernandes, Team Principal

“I am very happy with today. From my perspective that was the best qualifying of my short career in Formula 1 because we showed that we did not have to rely on other teams making mistakes or using different tyre strategies to finish the session with a very small gap to making it into Q2 on merit. That is a clear sign that the hard work being put in across the team is paying dividends as we are genuinely edging ever closer to the midfield.”

HRT F1 Team

Colin Kolles, Hispania Racing Team Principal

“I think it has been proven that we have made a step forward, we qualified ahead of the Virgins and the gap with Lotus is smaller than in previous races and it could’ve been even smaller. Tonio was two tenths quicker than in his fastest lap when he spun on his last lap and I assume he could’ve been between two and four tenths quicker if he would have finished the lap. All in all it’s quite positive, we have to keep pushing and improve the car. For tomorrow we don’t know the weather conditions, the forecast is rain but this could change. If it rains it will be a crazy grand prix, it could turn out to be a lottery which traditionally favours the smaller teams.”

Marussia Virgin Racing

John Booth, Team Principal

“It was a long night for the team but in the end both cars were ready to run in time for Free Practice 3 this morning. Jérôme’s crew did a fantastic job to prepare his car to our usual standards, so all credit to them. With the disruptions in the session yesterday we devoted some of this morning’s Free Practice 3 session to preparing for the race and perhaps in hindsight we should have allocated further time to our qualifying setup. We’ve seen quite a few varying weather forecasts over the last few days and on Friday afternoon, when deciding on the ratios we would run for the rest of the weekend, we opted to use our high downforce rear wing as at the time weather forecasts for Saturday and Sunday indicated a chance of rain. Overnight these forecasts changed slightly to say the qualifying session would be dry so we knew it would always be tough for us in these conditions. As they always say you can never predict the weather and the latest forecasts are suggesting that the conditions may swing back in our favour. Despite the fact that Jérôme failed to qualify today we are grateful to the Stewards for permitting him to race, having considered that he did set a suitable lap time during a free practice session, that he has consistently met the criteria under Article 36.3 this season and the extent of the overnight repairs required by the damage incurred in Free Practice 2. After the disappointment of qualifying it is both a relief and a justifiable reward to the mechanics for their substantial efforts through the night. It will be a tough race for him having been so unhappy with the car this morning so we will spend the evening looking at what we can do to help him have a better race.”