United Kingdom: Qualifying Seen from the Pits

Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton – Pole position

Nico Rosberg – 2nd

Ross Brawn, Team Principal: The team has worked incredibly well over the past few months to achieve a result like today’s. We have been nibbling away at performance, making improvements and continuing to attack, while focusing our efforts on tire management, and it seems to have paid off. The engineers and drivers put the cars in the perfect position for qualifying, and with the wind dropping at the end of the session, Lewis and Nico were able to deliver strong performances. Lewis did a magical lap at the end of the session and it’s nice to see him pushing his limits with Nico in every session. It will be a challenge to remain as competitive for the race but we gathered a lot of interesting data yesterday and hopefully we can use it for tomorrow.

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Red Bull

Sebastian Vettel – 3rd

Mark Webber – 4th

Christian Horner, Team Principal: « We could see this morning that Mercedes was very fast on a lap and they demonstrated that once again this afternoon, so congratulations to Lewis for his pole position at Silverstone. It was a great performance from both our drivers with only a hundredth of a second between them on the second row. Hopefully, we can provide a good fight to Mercedes from there tomorrow, and I am confident that we will see an exciting British Grand Prix. »

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Force India

Paul di Resta – 5th

Adrian Sutil – 7th

Vijay Mallya, Team Principal: « I am delighted with the result of today’s qualifications. The sun was shining, the stands were full, and we provided a fantastic show. The 5th place for Paul’s home Grand Prix is a magnificent performance, especially on a fast circuit, which has not been our strong point in recent years. Adrian’s 7th place confirms how competitive we are this weekend, and we know we have a good race pace. For tomorrow, it is important to maximize these starting positions, and hopefully, we can offer something to celebrate for our fans and partners for our home race. »

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Toro Rosso

Daniel Ricciardo – 6th

Jean-Eric Vergne – 13th

**James Key, Technical Director:** It’s good to be able to be present in Q3 with a car here. We were immediately in the rhythm from the start of the weekend, even though none of our drivers were fully happy with the car’s balance. However, this didn’t stop them from setting competitive laps. We didn’t really know what to expect at Silverstone, as it’s a very different track from the last three races, especially compared to Monaco and Montreal. We worked hard to ensure we had a good car here, and it paid off. Daniel did a fantastic job to be in Q3, and then that 6th place he earned on merit. It’s a shame for JEV, who was on the same pace as Daniel all weekend but couldn’t maximize his lap in Q2. Overall, this shows the steps forward we are making in terms of performance are working consistently, and finishing with both our cars in the points tomorrow is a realistic goal.

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Lotus

Romain Grosjean – 8th

Kimi Räikkönen – 9th

Alan Permane, Track Operations Director: « I’m happy to see both our cars in the top 10, but, of course, we would have liked a bit more today. Romain didn’t have a perfect final lap and suffered from understeer in turn 15, while there didn’t seem to be a better pace with Kimi’s car. We had a dilemma over whether to run Romain on the hard tires in Q3 because he was very good with them in Q1. Apart from that, both compounds responded well to Silverstone’s demands and there should be several possible strategies tomorrow. Like many others, the E21 prefers warmer temperatures. With today’s overcast weather, temperatures were quite low, so we hope for clearer skies tomorrow and a warmer track. »

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Ferrari

Fernando Alonso – 10th

Felipe Massa – 12th

Pat Fry, Technical Director: « Today, the long-awaited sun did not allow temperatures to be as high as we had hoped, especially on the track. The surface remained quite cold and already, in the last practice session, it caused some grip problems with several drivers going off track. Things slightly improved in qualifying, but not enough to increase grip. Looking at our starting positions, it’s clear that our cars suffered more than others, even if the gaps in the small group of cars ahead of Fernando are very close. While we attempted to improve the car’s balance, we tried different solutions to enhance drivability, both in high-speed and slow corners, keeping in mind that these will be key factors for tomorrow’s race. We can be more confident for the race, and we will rely on the performance we saw in the long stints, which is encouraging. During the first laps, it will be important to try to gain a few places. Then, our strategy will aim to help our drivers get as close as possible to our direct rivals. »

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

McLaren

Jenson Button – 11th

Sergio Pérez – 14th

Martin Whitmarsh, Team Principal: « It has been a tough weekend for the team, but our qualifying pace shows improvement and we hope to use that in tomorrow’s race. Jenson was unlucky to miss Q3. In Q2, he lost the 10th place by only 0.057 seconds and was only 0.659 seconds off the fastest time. Checo was unlucky today: his bad luck started with a puncture in free practice 3, which damaged his floor and forced us to put the old version back on his car. In qualifying, he was called to the FIA weighbridge, which made him lose temperature, and then he encountered traffic on track during his crucial lap, costing him time.

However, our two drivers are fantastic competitors. Jenson will have the support of his home crowd and Checo is determined to make up for today’s adversity. So I think our drivers are ready for an attacking race tomorrow.

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Sauber

Nico Hülkenberg – 15th

Esteban Gutiérrez – 18th

Tom McCullough, Track Engineering Director: « We encountered some difficulties with the car’s balance during free practice 3, but we were able to make improvements for qualifying. Being 15th and 18th on the grid is clearly not what we want and it will make tomorrow’s race challenging. The current weather forecast is for a dry race, so we’ll have to work hard tonight on strategy to maximize our chances. »

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Williams

Pastor Maldonado – 16th

Valtteri Bottas – 17th

Mike Coughlan, Technical Director: « It has been a difficult session for us, after promising free practice 3 we were hoping for more from this qualifying. In the fast corners here we seem to be competitive but we still have work to do in the slow sequences. There is always a great crowd here at Silverstone and we look forward to the race tomorrow. We hope to put on a good show for all our fans who support us here for our home Grand Prix. »

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Caterham

Charles Pic – 19th

Giedo Van der Garde – 21st [22nd on the grid after penalty]

Caterham has not released statements from the team’s representatives.

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Marussia

Jules Bianchi – 20th

Max Chilton – 22nd [21st on the grid]

John Booth, Team Director: Following yesterday, we had two cars with different setups to manage, and Jules was a bit happier with his car than Max. We made changes to Max’s car to harmonize the settings, but this morning both cars seemed to suffer from balance issues. During and after Free Practice 3, the engineers and the team worked hard to make major changes to the cars to improve balance, but at the end of our qualifying session, we still have two cars with balance that is not yet perfect. Overall, we are a bit disappointed with the result and need to understand how to improve our pace in qualifying. For tomorrow, it seems that we have better setups for the race, and I am confident that with our top speed and the improvements made in our race pace, we will have a better day. It seems the race will be dry with warmer temperatures than today, and these conditions should suit us better.

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes