Great Britain: GP Qualifying Seen from the Pits

Mercedes

Nico Rosberg – Pole position

Lewis Hamilton – 6th

Toto Wolff, Executive Director: This afternoon’s emotions are mixed after qualifying. I’m happy for Nico who secured pole right at the end: he had nothing to lose, as he was 2nd after his first run, and he did the job in the last sector where he was able to improve by four seconds compared to his previous lap.

On the other hand, I’m disappointed for Lewis – he did a great job leading, and then he thought it was too wet to improve and decided to stop. It’s easy to be wise in hindsight, but these are split-second decisions, and today was a bad day for him. Knowing Lewis, he’ll take this disappointment and turn it into extra motivation for the race. We seem to have solid pace in both dry and wet conditions, so I’m sure we’ll see our two cars fighting for the lead sooner than expected tomorrow.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Red Bull

Sebastian Vettel – 2nd

Daniel Ricciardo – 8th

Christian Horner, Team Principal: « A very difficult qualifying today in all three sessions and the weather played across all sectors. The guys did well to get through to Q3 and Sebastian did an enormous job at the end of the session to secure our sixth front row at Silverstone. Unfortunately, we underestimated the conditions at the end of Q3, so our apologies to Daniel, he didn’t go out again as he already had a time. With both cars quite high up in the pack on a mixed grid, hopefully, we’ll have a good race from there. »

– Read the drivers’ statements

McLaren

Jenson Button – 3rd

Kevin Magnussen – 5th

Eric Boullier, Race Director: Clearly, keeping in mind our qualifying performances in recent Grand Prix, we are happy to be 3rd and 5th today. That said, it was an upside-down session, and Lady Luck inevitably played her part in the unfolding of events. However, I must thank the team, because the guys really made the right decisions at the right times, and they deserve credit, because the decisions they had to make were both difficult and critical. Our two drivers also performed extremely well in challenging conditions that others failed to master.

Despite everything, we are not going to let ourselves get carried away by this positive performance in qualifying, because we know we are not yet where we want to be in terms of car performance. But undoubtedly, our decent grid positions are a welcome boost – and you can be sure that Jenson and Kevin will do everything they can, for our home race, in front of the most enthusiastic and knowledgeable fans in the world, to score as many championship points as possible.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Force India

Nico Hülkenberg – 4th

Sergio Pérez – 7th

Vijay Mallya, Team Owner: « Today, we achieved a very good result, which is always great in a home race. We placed both cars in Q3 under very difficult conditions, credit goes to both the team and our drivers: we had the right tires at the right time and reaped the benefits of good strategic choices. It’s a shame Checo couldn’t finish his second lap as we thought he could maintain his good position, but the fourth row is still a good starting position and he has already proven he can climb back when the race comes. Nico was impressive, pulling out a superb lap at the right time on a drying track. Starting fourth and seventh gives us a very good chance to score points to continue our battle in the constructors’ championship. Race pace is one of our best assets, so we can approach the race with confidence. »

– Read the drivers’ statements

Toro Rosso

Daniil Kvyat – 9th

Jean-Eric Vergne – 10th

**James Key, Technical Director:** « We have mixed feelings today because I think from an overall performance standpoint, everything went well until the last minutes of Q3. It was a very tricky session, really unpredictable, and I think everyone on the pit wall and the feedback from the drivers matched very well with what was happening, with a great effort from everyone. It’s disappointing to miss out on a better position in the top 10. We were ready to go out at the end, our indication was that it was too wet. In the end, the fact that the last sector was dry enough in the final minutes made the difference, and that’s why those who went out got ahead of us. Despite the disappointment, 9th and 10th are good positions no matter what, our race pace was good on Friday so we must do our best tomorrow. »

– Read the drivers’ statements

Lotus

Romain Grosjean – 11th

Pastor Maldonado – 15th [20th on the grid]

Alan Permane, Track Operations Director: « We seemed better in qualifying with both our drivers able to show good pace in mixed weather conditions today. This morning, with Pastor and Romain in the top 4 in free practice 3, highlighted the potential, but we fell short of what we could have achieved in qualifying. Romain was unlucky with the yellow flags and had to slow down during what could have been a faster lap, while Pastor suffered from the yellow flags and a fuel issue that compromised his performance. »

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Marussia

Jules Bianchi – 12th

Max Chilton – 13th [17th on the grid]

John Booth, Team Director: « As we approached this qualifying session, the team was still recovering from a difficult start to the day, following Max’s gearbox issue during his installation lap and Jules unfortunately not covering many laps before going off track. From a strategic standpoint, however, we gathered interesting information by observing our rivals during FP3, and while preparing for qualifying, we were able to devise an interesting plan for ourselves. As expected, the session started in the rain, and our two cars immediately went out on intermediates to set a lap right away, given the unpredictable weather.

Armed with all our simulations, it became clear that there was a window for dry tires, so both our cars went out on slicks, which was a good thing, and we made it through Q1. In this session, we saw similar conditions and once again our strategy paid off, by fueling our cars for the session and using the flexibility of stops to ensure we had the right tires at the right time. Max made a stop for another set of intermediates, as he had to abandon his lap. However, we reacted very quickly when we saw the track was ready for slicks again, bringing Jules and Max in to maximize the opportunity. The yellow flag at the end made things tricky, but in the end, we can see how ready the team is for the opportunities that exist in the midfield, and the 12th and 13th positions are a fantastic reward for our progress. Really well played by both our drivers today for doing what was necessary at every moment of both parts of the qualifying session.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Sauber

Esteban Gutierrez – 14th [19th on the grid]

Adrian Sutil – 16th [13th on the grid]

Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal: « The team worked well, and the engineers made the right decisions. Unfortunately, we were not able to take advantage of it. It’s a shame that one of the cars [Sutil’s] went off after a good lap and got stuck in the gravel, ending his session. The other driver [Gutiérrez] lost control of his car and hit the barrier. So we lost the chance to secure a good result in qualifying. In this kind of situation, we need to drastically improve. »

– Read the drivers’ statements

Williams

Valtteri Bottas – 17th [14th on the grid]

Felipe Massa – 18th [15th on the grid]

Rob Smedley, Head of Performance: « We have a good car so it’s very disappointing to be 17th and 18th. We tried to stay with our rivals on track but our times were not good. We didn’t see the rain coming as quickly as it did, it’s a mistake we can’t make again. The way to come back tomorrow is now important and getting into the points remains our goal, as we have the car to do it and we need to try to score as many points as possible compared to our closest rivals in the championship. »

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Ferrari

Fernando Alonso – 19th [16th on the grid]

Kimi Räikkönen – 20th [18th on the grid]

Pat Fry, Chassis Technical Director: Today’s qualifying result is a bit disappointing, and it means we will have to move mountains tomorrow with a plan to attack from the first to the last lap. In the early minutes of Q1, track conditions were mixed, which is the worst that can happen, because at some points there was a lot of water while other sections of the circuit were drying and others completely dry. It was impossible to improve with intermediates due to graining, and switching to slicks was complicated for the drivers because there was little grip. As lap times decreased as the track dried, we switched to mediums, like everyone else did, but the rain returned, and it means we couldn’t move on to the next part of qualifying. Now, our goal for tomorrow’s race is to finish in the points, trying to take advantage of the sets of new tires we have available.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Caterham

Marcus Ericsson – 21st

Kamui Kobayashi – 22nd

Cedrik Staudohar, Renault F1 Track Support Manager: « Today was not really our day. We hoped to take advantage of the weather but unfortunately, we had an ERS problem on Kamui’s car during the second run. After a restart, everything seemed fine, but we encountered another issue – indeed the engine acted as if it was still in the garage and stopped on the track, so it was the end of the session for Kamui. Marcus had a difficult session but no particular issues with the engine, so we are looking forward to tomorrow’s race where we hope to have better luck. »

– Read the drivers’ statements