Lance Stroll: "The car felt really good today; we found plenty of grip and the car gave me confidence. It gives us a great starting position for tomorrow. I am really pleased for the team because we have made good progress with the car recently and we are looking stronger on Saturdays. I really enjoyed it out there, even though conditions were tricky with the wind. It looks like we will start from fifth place, with a couple of penalties for the cars ahead, which means we are in the mix to pick up a good result on Sunday."

Sebastian Vettel: "There was more speed in the car today, so I am disappointed with my final qualifying result. I was not happy with my lap in Q2 and I was struggling to find confidence with the rear. Sector one was quite tricky today with the tailwind, but I lost time straight away when the rear end snapped turning into Turn Three, so I lost quite a lot of time in that whole sequence. The rest of the lap was alright, but I was playing catch-up. Small margins made the difference today and that is why I missed out on Q3."

Mike Krack, Team Principal: "The team performed strongly today. Lance achieved a very good seventh-fastest time in Q3, which we believe will translate to a P5 grid slot for tomorrow's race owing to penalties incurred by [Charles] Leclerc and [Sergio] Perez. Unfortunately, Sebastian failed by a small margin to progress through to Q3. Nonetheless, owing to penalties for drivers who qualified ahead of him, he will start tomorrow's race from P10. So we are in a strong position to challenge for points. Last but far from least, I would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of everyone at Aston Martin, to offer our sincerest condolences to all at Red Bull, and to the family and friends of Dietrich Mateschitz, on the occasion of the passing of a great man who has done an enormous amount for motorsport over the past quarter-century."

Check out our Saturday gallery from COTA here.