This morning we witnessed Hamilton’s 50th pole position, with his teammate Rosberg behind for a Mercedes first row. The Ferraris came behind in a very controversial qualifying session due to the unsuccessful new format.
1st Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes:
“Qualifying was the same as ususal for me, maybe there was a little more pressure. I did a sexy lap. By that I mean that I got good feelings from the car, I felt good; it’s like stepping off the car and feeling like James Bond.
“I don’t know how the new qualifying system worked, maybe it’s not the best option but I don’t think we need to apologise. I suppose it’s the same for me. I like the idea of changing because that means we’re trying to improve.
“I can’t see any reasons to go back to the old format. We had it for a long time and that was a problem.
“Honestly, we’ve started the weekend in a great way despite all the negativity around the new qualifying system. It might have bothered me some years ago, but right now it’s like drinking a tea I don’t like, little by little you get used to it.”
2nd Nico Rosberg, Mercedes:
“ There will be many unknowns tomorrow. With different strategies there are more possibilities to finish ahead of Lewis, that might help me.
“It’s good that Formula 1 has tried this new qualifying system, but we need to go back to the old one.”
3rd Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari:
“There are opportunities for tomorrow, but not for the regulation changes but because we know what we have to do.
“I don’t know why people are surprised about the new qualifying system, we already said this was going to happen. It’s a little stressful but I don’t know if it’s the best way for the fans to follow Formula 1. Changes are good, but this time it was a mistake.
“We decided not to go out in Q3 in order to save tyres for tomorrow, since we had to use an extra set of tyres in Q2.
“To be fair, the fact that we ended Q3 earlier has nothing to do with the system. I just thought there wasn’t much room of improvement and we decided to save a set of tyres. I hope this helps us be closer to Mercedes tomorrow. It was a good day for us, but Mercedes found the pace too fast.”