Cyril Dumont, Renault: "Seb made a very good start, Mark's was not so good, but it was a good recovery during the race and a solid race from both drivers. The pace was there with high fuel, so it's a shame we didn't qualify higher yesterday. I would also have liked to have seen Mark on the podium today, but fourth is a good result and Seb was second. We will be back fortified for the next race."

"Lewis, too, drove extremely well, but was unfortunately deprived of second place when the Safety Car was deployed late in the race. A Vodafone McLaren Mercedes one-two had been there for the taking; but I guess it's a very good sign when you feel a little disappointed by a one-three, so we'll settle for that!

"We never under-estimate our opposition, and undoubtedly there's a long hard road ahead of us between now and the end of the season. But we've started well, and in a few days' time we'll roll into Sepang, Malaysia, hungry to score a repeat victory.

"I want to thank everyone at not only Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, but also at Mercedes AMG HighPerformancePowertrains, for a fantastic effort over the past few weeks and months. We've all worked incredibly hard - and, today, in dappled late-afternoon sunshine in Melbourne's Albert Park, all that hard work paid off."

Stefano Domenicali: Clearly we cannot be happy with a fifth place but, given how things went yesterday, Fernando's result is a positive one, the result mainly of yet another super performance from the Spaniard. Felipe's bad Sunday is the result of the Saturday that preceded it: the balance of his car was not right and he paid the price, especially in terms of tyre degradation: a shame because thanks to a really good start, he'd managed to move up straight into the top ten. We knew that this weekend, the car we had was not the one we wanted going into this season, but today we also saw a situation that was a bit different to yesterday, especially as far as Fernando was concerned, because, in the first stint, his pace was not that far off that of the leaders. The Safety Car did not help him any and after the end of the neutralised period, Fernando's pace was no longer as competitive and he struggled to keep Maldonaldo's Williams behind him. I want to highlight the performance of the crew during the pit stops: looking at the figures, we were the fastest both in terms of outright performance and on average. I am keen to mention this, because we have worked a great deal on this front: already in the second part of 2011, the situation was better and today we have taken another step forward. We know we must raise the performance level of our car: from what we have seen here in Australia, there are several teams not so far off one another and one does not need to make enormous progress to make up several places. We know the main areas we need to work on – traction and top speed first and foremost – and we must accelerate as much as possible the development work to reach the level of the best as soon as possible.

Pat Fry: From what we have seen this weekend, our race pace is a bit better than in qualifying. Today, Fernando drove a very good race and managed to bring home some valuable points. A shame for Felipe: we must try and understand why his car was not right from yesterday as today, we saw even more of the consequences of that. Both drivers got a good start and managed the situation well through the first corner, thus immediately making up the ground lost yesterday afternoon: without that first lap, it would have been tough because there are so many quick cars and it would have been quite a task to get past them. The Safety Car came out at the worst possible time for Fernando, but even so, he would not have managed to fend off Webber in the final part of the race. However, we are behind when compared to the best, even if not as much as could be seen yesterday. We must work very hard, that's for sure. Next week in Malaysia, we will have another difficult race: we must try and adapt as well as possible to the characteristics of the Sepang circuit.

Both drivers had excellent starts with Michael making up one place to third, and Nico moving from seventh to fourth. Michael was still running in third position when a gearbox problem forced him to retire the car on lap 11. Nico ran a two-stop race with an option/option/prime tyre strategy, stopping on laps 12 and 31. He would have finished in the points before a clash with Perez on the last lap dropped him to back to 12th place.

Ross Brawn: "After a very encouraging weekend, today was not a good result for us. Despite excellent starts, both Michael and Nico had difficulties from the start of the race with their tyres. With the development of the circuit and the track temperatures, we fell out of the working window, and struggled with degradation. However, we remain positive as both here and over the winter tests, we have demonstrated that we have a fundamentally quick car and we have a lot to build on. So we need to look at what happened today, unravel the problem and work out where we need to improve."

Norbert Haug: "Michael was defending third place when his gearbox had a problem which caused his retirement. Nico did not have the necessary speed due to problems in the tyre usage, the reason for which we are currently investigating. The collision on the last lap cost Nico points but more concerning for us today is that we could not use the tyres as we did during testing and earlier this weekend. The team will work hard to understand the problem and to be in better shape next week in Malaysia."

Both cars started on the yellow marked soft compound tyres. Kimi made two stops, opting for a soft-soft-medium strategy. Romain retired before making a stop. Romain's retirement was caused by a collision with Pastor Maldonado at turn 13, where the Williams driver made contact with his right front wheel, breaking the steering. Kimi started the race's final lap in P10 and finished it in P7.

Eric Boullier, Team Principal: "We should be leaving Australia with mixed feelings, but actually we all have a little grin on our faces tonight. Yes, we had great expectations from Romain after his third position in qualifying, and seeing another car taking him out of the race early on was very disappointing. But on the other hand, the performance shown by the E20 this weekend makes us optimistic for the rest of the season. The team has produced a very solid car, responsive to set-up changes, and quick. It has been a tough winter, and I'd like to congratulate everybody at Enstone for their hard work which seems to have paid off. I'm proud to be part of a team that can take blows like we suffered in 2011 and still bounce back to show what we are made of. Kimi has been able to demonstrate that we have more than just single-lap pace; gaining 11 places in his first race after a two-year break is certainly a satisfying performance. We're now all looking forward to Sepang, a completely different track, where we hope we'll be able to put on another decent show. We think there's definitely more to come from us."

James Allison, Technical Director: "Though we may have some disappointment from the race, when you look at the weekend overall we can be proud about how the car, team and our drivers have performed as it's a much more satisfying story. Starting from P3 on the grid, we hoped for something better than P7. However, for Kimi to have converted his rather lowly grid position into a handful of points gives us some consolation. Most importantly, however, the car looks quick and we are optimistic of bringing home strong results with both cars in Malaysia."

Ricardo Penteado, Renault Sport F1 Team Support Leader: "Australia is a hard track engine-wise as we need to deliver responsiveness out of the slow and medium speed corners for good acceleration down the straights. However this makes fuel consumption very high, so careful engine management is needed. Across the weekend we've worked very well as a partnership, with a strong starting position for Romain and ultimately an excellent race result from Kimi giving us a decent amount of points from the first race. Our aim now is to build on this strong form in Malaysia, which puts a very different set of stresses on the RS27."

Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal: "We always felt that today's race was likely to be full of drama and it didn't disappoint - particularly the closing lap of the race when Paul did an excellent job to grab the final point in the dash to the line. He drove a very clean race, stayed out of trouble and made the most of the strategy, but ultimately he struggled for absolute pace over the duration of the stints, which is something we need to address. As for Nico, he was simply the innocent victim of the turn one chaos. He got hit quite hard from behind going into turn one, which caused some serious damage to the left rear suspension and he immediately came on the radio to say that he needed to park the car. We have to take this on the chin because it's part of racing, but it's disappointing for Nico who needs all the race miles he can get at the moment. Still, he's shown what he is capable of and he can be proud of the job he has done this weekend."

Peter Sauber, Team Principal: "Both drivers delivered a fantastic race, especially Sergio, starting from last and finishing eighth. However, this is only possible with a fast car. I'm very happy that we were able to fight back after a difficult qualifying. A big thank you to the team at the track and also the people back in Hinwil for designing a great car. We went into this season with high expectations and were able to deliver today."

Giampaolo Dall'Ara, Head of Track Engineering: "It was a bitter sweet weekend. Qualifying was disappointing, but in the race we were able to show our true potential. I wonder if we could have done even better today, because we had to compromise a lot on the strategy due to the fact that both drivers were stuck in traffic and couldn't make best use of the tyres. With Sergio we planned a flexible strategy which was a result of his grid position. Although we didn't know before the race whether a one stop strategy could work, it was the only way to have the chance of scoring points. Sergio did a very good job conserving the tyres for a long time, and towards the end of the race I was really impressed how he was able to keep up with drivers who had much newer tyres. Kamui was on a "normal" strategy. Also for him in the beginning it was a bit frustrating with traffic, but in the end he was also able to score a great result. For sure we have to improve our qualifying performance, but the important fact is that we know that we have a good car."

Mark Gillan, Chief Operations Engineer: Whilst the end result was disappointing for the team, we are all very pleased with the significant performance improvement of the FW34, with the car showing both good qualifying and race pace. We will now regroup and look forward to delivering a strong performance in Malaysia next weekend.

Laurent Debout, Renault Sport F1 team support leader: This weekend the Williams-Renault package has shown itself to be competitive, which validates the hard work we've put in since the announcement last year. Pastor had an amazing weekend right until the very last lap and it was a shame he could not score some points to consolidate the good form. Bruno was very unfortunate and ultimately we had to make a call at the end of the race to stop the car. Debris from the accident with Massa had become sucked in the sidepods and water temperature was starting to rise. This engine has to be re-used in Malaysia so we made a call to prevent any damage to the unit. We're looking forward to Sepang now, and are encouraged by this weekend's overall performance.

Mark Smith, Technical Director: "Today we showed the sort of pace that we knew this car was capable of in pre-season testing. We ran different tyre strategies on both cars, starting Heikki on the options and Vitaly on the primes and both cars were running to plan through the first stops and right up until the problems we had in mid-race. Vitaly's issue was related to his steering wheel and he deserves great credit for putting in such a strong performance on his first race with the team. With Heikki it looks like a front track rod issue was causing his car to pull to the left in the braking zones so we had to retire him, rather than risk an incident. However, I am very encouraged by our performance in the race and we have a good platform to build on. It is clear that we can race with a number of cars in the midfield so we will move on to Malaysia and make sure we have a strong weekend in front of the home fans."

Riad Asmat, Caterham Group Chief Executive: "We have a great deal of very good news to take out of today. Obviously we did not want to finish like that, but after both Heikki and Vitaly negotiated their way around the first corner clash we were quickly up to speed with the likes of Force India, Williams and even Ferrari, and that's very encouraging for next week in our first home race of the season in Malaysia and the season ahead. We have work to do to make sure we cure the problems we encountered today, but we will do just that and come back even more strong in Sepang."

Both drivers delivered calm and assured performances in today's race, at the conclusion of the most pressured of weekends. Timo was rewarded with the best birthday present he has had in several F1 seasons - he celebrates his 30th birthday in Melbourne today - and Charles' Grand Prix debut really could not have been any more positive.

The pair lined up 20th and 21st on the grid for the 58-lap race at Albert Park and navigated their way through the first corner melée to elevate themselves to 13th and 18th respectively. The Safety Car brought out to clear Petrov's stranded Caterham from the start-finish straight allowed them to pit for a second time and unlap themselves, before driving a relatively conservative final stint to ensure both cars got to the finish. Pic was forced to come into the garage just two laps before the end of the race after an oil pressure concern forced the team to be cautious with the car. He completed enough of the race to be classified 15th and the combined result of both drivers means the Marussia F1 Team leave the opening race in 10th place in the 12-team Constructors' Championship.

John Booth, Team Principal: "I know I speak for the whole team when I say I am absolutely delighted with the new car's racing debut this weekend in Melbourne. I said on Friday that, despite P12 for Timo in FP2, I didn't want us to get carried away with ourselves because qualifying could be a different story and the race was highly likely to expose some of the reliability aspects of the car that we have not yet had the chance to explore due to our lack of testing. It really is quite something to have come so far in such a short space of time and in such challenging circumstances. Coming into the weekend the car had just 200kms of promotional running on demonstration tyres and since we started here on Friday we have completed 215 near faultless laps - that's 1120kms. All credit to both drivers, who have been fantastic throughout. Timo talked all the way through the race, giving us vital feedback to add to the mountain of data we've been able to gather thanks to the good mileage. Charles' debut has been very impressive indeed and made very clear to us that he means business in his debut year. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank our Partners - those who have been with us throughout and all the new names who joined us in the weeks leading up to the race - for their faith in the Marussia F1 Team, which I am pleased has been rewarded this weekend at Albert Park. We should be under no illusions that plenty of work lies ahead but 10th in the Constructors'' Championship is not a bad place to start."

The top finishers adopted a two-stop strategy for the race, as was the case last year, but with the pace of the medium and the soft compound only differing by around 0.5 seconds per lap, the way in which they used the tyres was different - with some drivers favouring two stints on the soft tyre and others preferring two stints on the medium. Sauber driver Sergio Perez once more was the only person to adopt a one-stop strategy, starting on the medium tyre and changing to the soft on lap 24, to claim eighth place.

One of the turning points of the race was a safety car on lap 36, which bunched up the field and allowed Red Bull Racing's Sebastian Vettel to claim second place by passing McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton in the pits. Up to that point McLaren's tyre strategy had been working perfectly, with the team choosing to pit both cars on the same lap for their second stops just before the safety car. When the safety car came in with only 16 laps to go, all the drivers apart from the Toro Rossos were on the P Zero White medium tyres.

At the restart, race leader Jenson Button demonstrated the rapid warm-up time of the medium compound even in the cool conditions of the afternoon by pulling out a second within the first sector, to eventually claim his third victory in Australia. Vettel, who finished runner-up, had adopted a completely different strategy by using the soft tyre during his medium stint. Last year, Vettel's winning margin was 22 seconds; this year Button won by just over two seconds.

Throughout the final 10 laps, the top four drivers were covered by just over five seconds, with the final podium places remaining undecided right up to the final lap. A long first stint - which took him all the way up to second place at one point - was a vital ingredient in boosting former World Champion Kimi Raikkonen from 18th place on the grid to a points-scoring seventh, which he claimed for Lotus on the final lap.

The fastest lap of the race was set on the P Zero White medium tyre, by Jenson Button, who took the 13th victory of his career. The longest stint on the soft tyre came from Perez, who completed 33 laps, and the longest stint on the medium tyre was 26 laps from Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg.

Paul Hembery: "The Australian Grand Prix certainly lived up to expectations, and we fulfilled our objective of providing scope for more strategies by reducing the performance gaps between the compounds and extending the window of peak performance. An interesting element was that there were many pit stops that were not for wear level but instead for degradation, confirming what we wanted to achieve strategy-wise. We also saw more use of the medium tyre than the soft tyre, contrary to last year. Despite this range of strategies there were some very tight battles all the way down the field right up to a dramatic final lap, with one driver crashing out and eighth, ninth and 10th places crossing the finish line practically together! The wear and degradation of the tyres was around 0.1 seconds per lap on the soft tyre - with the frontrunners choosing to pit twice, despite the rapid pace at the front of the field. Many congratulations to Jenson Button and McLaren for a stylish victory and also to Mark Webber, who scores his best-ever finish on home territory."