Lewis Hamilton:
I'm still struggling for words - that really was one of my best races. Before the start, I was sat in the car and thinking, 'Okay, let's go,' but the car wouldn't start. I didn't question what was going on, I just wanted to stay calm and not add to everyone's stress. When I finally left the garage, I drove down the pitlane watching the light and hoped it wouldn't turn red - and it didn't! It's never been that close before...
"It's rare to have battles like the ones we saw today; you really had to think about the situation, and I loved that challenge, but having to overtake people made things so much sweeter.
"At the end, it was tough to get past Sebastian - even though he was getting slower, he never looked like getting out of shape. It was always going to be difficult to follow him onto the back straight, so I wanted to get him before then - I wasn't expecting to overtake where I did, but I had the grip to keep ahead, and I made it stick.
"Looking back at these three flyaways, it still feels absolutely amazing to have a car beneath us that can compete. We've still got some way to go to close the gap to the Red Bulls, but we had the better strategy and were able to execute it really well. The team will keep on pushing as hard as ever as we head into the European season.
"I feel so proud: this race is in my top three of race wins, it's up there with Silverstone and Monaco in 2008. I exist and I live and I breathe to win: I love winning and I just couldn't be happier."
Jenson Button:
"Firstly, I want to say congratulations to Lewis - he had good pace and drove a great race today. It was also a fantastic job by the whole team.
"I had a pretty interesting race - I lost out to Sebastian at the first pitstop when I mistakenly pulled into his box. I was looking down at the steering wheel to adjust a switch: when I looked up, I thought I was in my pitbox, but then I saw the Red Bull pitcrew in front of me! But that moment didn't really change my race at all.
"We saw a lot of action out on the track today, but we just weren't quick enough today. For some reason, I really struggled to look after the rear tyres, and fourth place was the best I could get out of my car today.
"Nowadays, getting strategy right is very important. I didn't have a clue where I was going to finish: I could have been seventh, I could have been second.
"Nonetheless, fourth position is a good result, all things considered. Now I'm looking forward to getting back to MTC and improving the car for the next race. We'll be pushing as hard as ever, and this victory will be a great motivator for everybody back in Woking - they'll all be wearing their Rocket Red Victory T-shirts."
Fernando Alonso:
I made a bad start, Felipe managed to get past me and a Force India nearly did the same, then it was a good battle on the opening lap. After the first pit stop, I lost too much time behind Michael, thus losing touch with the leading group. I found myself fighting him again at the end of the race, with our positions reversed. Once again, it was a good battle, but I would have preferred to have been doing it for a podium finish rather than seventh place. Unfortunately, our race pace was too slow and I don't think that a different strategy would have changed anything. I've had better Sundays in my career, but I won't get downhearted or lose confidence. We know we have to improve to get to the front: McLaren and Mercedes have managed it and there is no reason to think we can't do the same. Clearly, aerodynamics is our Achilles Heel at the moment and that's what we have to work on the most. Eight days ago in Malaysia we had seen some encouraging signs, but that was not the case here: the car has not changed, while others have made progress.
Felipe Massa:
It's a real shame not managing to finish this race in a better position. It really seems that, from qualifying to the race, we discover another car: yesterday, we were not competitive, today we fought with the leaders right to the end. Unfortunately, on the hard tyres we could not defend position all the way to the end. The strategy? Now, it's easy to say that we were not on the right one, but we are a team and we take our decisions together. Vettel made the same choice as us and we had a reasonably similar pace. Probably we would have finished on the podium, but we need to look into all the details with the engineers. I am happy with my race; I think it was my best this year and maybe even the best including last year. We need to work out how to improve the car, especially in qualifying.
Michael Schumacher:
"That was a lot of racing in one Grand Prix this afternoon and very exciting! I had a lot of fun this afternoon and I'm so pleased to see the hard work of our guys paid off this weekend. We have made a big step forward with our car and it worked very well. We are heading towards the first race in Europe now and will bring some upgrades to Istanbul which should help us to improve even more. It is good to leave Asia with a positive feeling."
Nico Rosberg:
"Naturally I'm disappointed with the race today as we know that we didn't make the most of our opportunity out there. We've made a big step with the car this weekend which is really nice to see and we will have better races in future. Leading the race for such a long time was a great feeling but we had issues with the fuel consumption which made it really difficult to fight for position. We could have had a podium finish or maybe more today, but we will learn from this together as a team and make sure that we get the results next time."
Nick Heidfeld:
"I'm not happy with where I finished, even though I started P16. The start was very poor, but I went aggressive into the first corner and made up a few places. After a few laps I started having problems with the KERS and couldn't use the full power all the time, which made overtaking and defending quite difficult. I think our pace in the second stint on the soft tyre was not too bad, but it was still hard to attack the cars ahead of me. That's why we made an early stop for hard tyres in the hope that we could get some clean air and jump the cars ahead of me. Unfortunately Perez and Sutil stopped on the same lap, and it meant I couldn't really show our pace in the final stint."
Vitaly Petrov:
"To be P9 and take two points for the team is still good, given that we did not qualify in high positions. However, we are still a bit disappointed that we did not challenge higher up the order and gain even more points. The strategy was OK, but we must now see where we can improve. We will analyse the data and see what went wrong, and we will try to repeat the results we had in Australia and Malaysia when we reach Turkey."
Rubens Barrichello:
We opted for a two-stop strategy today, others did three, but I don't think that made a difference. The car isn't performing as well as it should. I am going to work hard to help the team improve it. I need this car to be performing better and I know we can make it happen.
Pastor Maldonado:
I'm pleased that we finished the race because we now have more data to analyse how the FW33 is working over a race distance which we haven't had to date. My car felt ok, but we need to find more speed and improve our performance. We have a long gap between now and Turkey to look over the data and make improvements.
Adrian Sutil:
I was unlucky with the incident with Perez, which cost me the race. But in the end we had problems as well with the tyres, they didn't last as long as we thought and I was just struggling the whole time. We have to understand why we were not so competitive in the race this time; in qualifying we were much better, so we will go away, analyse everything and I think it is good that we have the break now before the next race in Europe. The team back at the factory did a good job to get us to where we are after these first three races; we just need to work out what happened in particular today to bring both qualifying and race performances together.
Paul di Resta:
It was always going to be quite a tough race, starting from where we were. We came very close to scoring points, but just missed out at the end when the tyres had gone. Having gone into the race without heavy fuel runs may have compromised us a bit. We didn't quite get the aero balance right at the start, but the second and third stints I think were pretty good, just a bit longer than expected because we had to stop early to try and cover Michael [Schumacher]. May be a three stop strategy would have suited us better, but only time will tell in the simulations. But we came here relatively strong in performance and I think we have to be very thankful of that. Overall I am still very happy on how the weekend went considering we qualified into Q3 and came close to scoring points once again.
Sergio Perez:
"My start as such was okay, but I had a very bad first corner and lost some positions. Most importantly I'm very sorry for the accident with Adrian (Sutil) - I am sorry for him and sorry for my team. At this time in the race I wanted to get the most out of my tyres, as I was under pressure from Vitaly (Petrov), so was quite aggressive. Unfortunately I lost the rear when I was already on the inside of Adrian and crashed into him. It is a real shame because, as I said before, this weekend I felt a lot more comfortable with the car than ever before."
Sebastian Buemi:
"Not the result we were expecting so I am a bit disappointed and frustrated that I failed to score points, having started from a points position. I don't really know what happened at the start, as I had a poor start even though from my point of view I think I did everything right, so I would like to see the data, because I had a lot of wheelspin. After that, I got passed by Heidfeld and then, at a certain point, I started to feel a lot of understeer, to the point where it was getting very difficult to drive the car, so we decided to change the front wing. That meant an extra pit stop and from then on my race was compromised. We could have done a lot better without that, but this is how it ended and all we can do now is see how we can make a step forward for Turkey."
Jaime Alguersuari:
"From quite early on I was struggling with grip from the rear tyres, so we decided to come in earlier than planned for the first stop to try and fight back for the ground lost at the start. Then, immediately after leaving the pits, I felt the car was very unstable and then I lost a wheel nut and the wheel came off, so there was nothing I could do. After my best qualifying position I was hoping for better even if we knew we would be using quite worn tyres after qualifying, so we had started on my worst set of tyres to try and have an edge later in the race, but it was not to be."
Heikki Kovalainen:
"That is our best ever performance. It's not the highest place we've had but today we beat two midfield cars in a straight fight so I am very happy, with my performance and the performance of the whole team. We knew we would struggle in the cool conditions yesterday but today the temperatures rose and we expected to be able to put in the sort of race that would do justice to the pace that is in the car. We will keep working hard to improve the car's behaviour in the cooler conditions and we can only get better from here."
Jarno Trulli:
"I had a good start and then Heikki and I were able to pull away from the cars behind and keep to the strategy to fight with the guys ahead. My first stop wasn't great and I'm still having a few issues with the tyre degradation but really today is about the team result. We have shown we are developing exactly as we want to and that's a huge motivation for everyone."
Narain Karthikeyan:
"We met our main objective today which was none other than to finish the race. I don't think the Virgin's are that far ahead of us which is good for future races. After having completed our target today we now have to improve the car and try and attack from Turkey onwards. With the new updates and parts we will be a lot more competitive for the next race. Nothing is easy in Formula 1 but we can definitely compete with our closest rivals soon."
Tonio Liuzzi:
"We have performed a lot better than in Malaysia and have closed the gap on Virgin, our closest rival. Unfortunately I had a drive-through penalty because of a problem at the start where I dropped the clutch too early and moved before the green light. But overall I'm happy because we achieved our target which was to reach the checkered flag. Now we have to look forward to Turkey because our race pace has improved from Malaysia and will be even better in Turkey with the updates."
Timo Glock:
"Not a great race unfortunately from my point of view, but positive in the fact that we got both cars home, which was the objective. I had a good start and a good first lap. I managed to stay in front of the HRT and overtook Jerome when he had a moment in turn 13. In general we suffered a bit more rear degradation for some reason. The team then took the decision to convert to a three stop race but this was not the right way to go because we suffered massively with the blue flags. Then in the last stop the wheel didn't go on, which cost me a few seconds leaving the pits. Generally on the hard tyre the car was slightly better but in the beginning we just struggled. A difficult start to the season is now behind us and we look forward positively to the upgrade that everyone has been working so hard on behind the scenes to ensure we can take a good step forward in Turkey. Thanks to everyone in the team for a great start operationally and I hope we can share some better results as we move ahead."
Jerome d'Ambrosio:
"I'm very pleased with my race. It's my second finish so I'm happy about that. I think I made progress throughout the whole weekend and my race pace was much better than in the previous two races, which is also good. The first lap was good fun as I had an enjoyable fight with Timo, he got past me, then I passed him and then he overtook me again. It was the sort of racing I like. I can see I'm making improvements and that's the important thing and now I'm looking forward to Turkey."
