Martin Whitmarsh, Team principal, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes: "This weekend has been a very difficult one for everyone at Vodafone McLaren Mercedes. No-one in our team likes not winning, and it goes without saying that we all remain utterly determined to return to our winning ways. That may not be a realistic prospect for this season - although significant improvements are in the pipeline - but the team is doing a huge amount of work in an effort to gain a full understanding of the performance issues our car is currently facing, with a view to developing next year's car as well as improving this year's car. Sometimes you have to go backwards before you can begin going forwards - and, painful as it was for all of us, this weekend was an example of that."
Norbert Haug, Vice-president, Mercedes-Benz Motorsport: "A race to forget. Our performance was by far not where it has to be and where it was when we won five of the last 10 races here on this classic racetrack. We should not talk a lot now but rather work a lot. Congratulations to our German friend Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull Racing and Mark Webber for a very impressive performance and a clearly very dominant one-two today. This was the most impressive performance of the season so far."
Stefano Domenicali: After the less than brilliant qualifying yesterday, our aim was to get both cars home in the points and we did it. Felipe drove a fantastic race: starting eleventh and finishing fourth with no one in front of him on the grid retiring is a great performance. Kimi got a great start, making the most of the KERS, but after that he was unable to make the most of having moved up the order, because of traffic. Today, we saw one team clearly ahead of the rest, but we showed we could match the pace of all the others, including those who only two weeks ago, were clearly better. We will have to study in depth everything that happened this weekend to understand how the performance level can change so suddenly, one way or the other, without there having been any changes made to the cars.
Chris Dyer: We got the most out of a weekend that was definitely not brilliant in terms of performance. Both our drivers had great starts, getting the most of out the KERS. Then Felipe picked up a good pace that, along with the strategy, allowed him to move up quite a few places. As for Kimi, he was slowed by traffic and the key moment in his race was when Trulli came out on track ahead of him when he made his first pit stop. He was unable to pass him on the track and then, during the run of pit stops, other drivers were able to get ahead of him. Yesterday, we were rather disappointed both with our result and with our performance, but today things were definitely better: however, we have to admit there is still a great deal of work to do to be competitive at the highest level, which is where we want to be.
Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director): "For us the race reflects the performance we showed in yesterday's qualifying. Overall it was a disappointing weekend for our team. We will speed up our development programme. The only out of the ordinary situation from our point of view today was when Nick touched another car on the first lap and damaged his front wing. Although he was able to continue until the scheduled pit stop he lost a lot of time."
Willy Rampf (Head of Engineering): "We are obviously not happy with this result, but unfortunately it reflects our qualifying performance. In the race we were struggling to get the tyres into the window when they were working at their best. Both drivers complained about lack of grip on the hard compound. With the softer tyre, the pace was acceptable. But at the end of the day here the car was just not competitive. At the Nurburgring we will introduce the next aerodynamic update."
It was a disappointing afternoon for the ING Renault F1 Team at Silverstone as Nelson Piquet and Fernando Alonso finished in 12th and 14th places respectively.
Flavio Briatore, Managing Director: "Fernando's poor start put him in a position that was hard to recover from and equally Nelson was caught in traffic, which made it difficult to see his true pace. The team switched Nelson to a one-stop strategy, which gained him four places, nevertheless we must improve the pace of the car very rapidly."
Pat Symonds, Executive Director of Engineering: "Our performance today did not meet the expectations that we had after qualifying and so we leave Silverstone disappointed. The poor start for Fernando compromised his race and losing so much time in his first stint made it impossible to score points. Nelson's one-stop strategy worked well, but it's clear that we weren't quick enough today. We need to regroup and improve before Germany."
Remi Taffin, Head of Engine Operations: "Unfortunately we just weren't fast enough today. We didn't have a great start to the race, which meant we were caught in traffic, and with the strategies we were running that made it difficult to move forward. Both drivers drove well and gave their maximum. We must now concentrate on the next race in Germany."
Panasonic Toyota Racing left Silverstone with two points after a frustrating British Grand Prix at Silverstone today. Hopes were high for a podium challenge after an extremely competitive qualifying performance but on another chilly Silverstone afternoon they turned to disappointment when the red lights went out to signify the start of the race. Jarno Trulli started on the second row but a launch issue saw him lose ground off the line to leave him seventh at the end of the first lap. Timo Glock dropped three places to 11th on the opening lap. Jarno's first pit stop came on lap 18 and he opted for another set of soft Bridgestone Potenza tyres, with fast work by the pit crew moving him up to sixth. Timo made his first pit stop a lap later and followed the same tyre strategy, emerging again in 11th. With track temperatures only 30°C, the team chose a short final stint for both drivers on the hard tyres. Jarno dropped to seventh but Timo came out ninth and fighting for the final point. As Jarno brought the car home in seventh, Timo hounded the eighth-placed Kimi Raikkonen but there was no opportunity to pass.
John Howett - President: "We expected a better result than this but the race didn't turn out as we hoped. Qualifying was very promising and we genuinely expected to fight for the podium but Jarno lost positions at the start and Timo was squeezed going into the first corner. Two points is far less than we expected after the qualifying result but this will motivate us to develop further and come back stronger for one of our home Grands Prix at the Nurburgring."
Franz Tost: First of all, well done to Red Bull for a fantastic job, especially the drivers, Vettel showing incredible pace in the early stages, with he and Webber easily controlling the race. For our part, we were off the pace this weekend and apart from some small technical problems, we were not at the level at which we expected to be. One of the reasons is that we suffer from the lack of new specification aero parts. We will have these for Hungary, when I expect and hope that this will bring us back to the front end of the mid-field.
Christian Horner: What a fantastic team result, a one-two, with both guys totally dominating the race. There were so many members of the team here today and, for them to see what their cars can do, when they have put in so much effort, is just incredible. I'm thrilled for everyone at Red Bull, they've done a brilliant job. This track suits our car and the drivers have been in fantastic form all weekend. Sebastian was outstanding today and Mark also did a brilliant job – he was very patient when he needed to be behind Rubens in the first stint. It was a great team result. We've still got a long way to go to catch Brawn GP, but we're definitely moving in the right direction.
Fabrice Lom, Renault, Principal Engineer, Track Support: Wow, a magic result – first and second at the British Grand Prix. The team is so happy and, for the guys in Milton Keynes, this victory is so deserved – they worked like hell to prepare this new package. It's a great result for them. For us as the engine partner to be part of this adventure is a great pleasure – so congratulations to everyone back in the factories and let's enjoy this fantastic result.
Sam Michael, Technical Director: It was great for the team to pick up more points today with Nico's fifth place and it shows we're still heading in the right direction with development. Nico drove well, it was just a shame he was caught up in traffic for the majority of the race as I think he could have done more. He showed that he was quick by setting the third fastest laptime in the race, only behind the two Red Bulls. With his strategy, it was always going to be difficult for Kazuki to score points, but he is definitely improving, and he really helped the team with set-up direction this weekend.
Giancarlo gained two positions on the first lap and overtook two further cars in Stowe corner on his second. He then lapped at the same pace as the top ten, right on the tail of Toyota's Timo Glock. A long first stint gave Giancarlo a chance to put in a series of quick laps and he was fourth by lap 19 after the first round of pit stops began. When he eventually pitted on lap 21, Giancarlo was able to leapfrog Glock for tenth. A second stop for hard tyres on lap 45 allowed him to take Nakajima as well, but he unfortunately lost a position to Glock when rejoining the track. Giancarlo closed the gap back to under a second but couldn't find a way past in the closing laps, finishing the race yet again within sight of the points.
Adrian Sutil started the race from the pit lane following yesterday's qualifying accident. The team elected for a one-stop strategy and Adrian was able to reclaim three positions to finish 17th overall. For a second race in succession he enjoyed a close battle with Lewis Hamilton, finishing just over a second from the reigning world champion.
Dr Vijay Mallya, chairman and team principal: It was a very impressive race performance today from Force India. We had our fair share of bad luck in qualifying yesterday with Adrian's shunt, which unfortunately ruined Fisi's lap as well. Who knows, if we had started further up the grid as we had hoped maybe points would have been in reach today. Nevertheless I am very happy both cars finished: reliability is good, we're competitive and keeping pace with all the others and we beat some top teams as well. Obviously I am delighted that we are getting there, slowly but steadily. I'm very hopeful for the next few races.
Brawn GP's Rubens Barrichello drove an assured race at Silverstone today to bring his Brawn-Mercedes car home in third position at the team's home Grand Prix. Team-mate Jenson Button secured sixth position to score a valuable three points.
Both drivers began the race on the softer option tyre and whilst Rubens had a good getaway to maintain second position off the line, Jenson was boxed in behind a slow-starting Trulli and dropped to ninth at the first corner.
Following similar two-stop strategies, Jenson pitted first on lap 18 for a long middle stint on the prime tyre. Rubens came in one lap later, losing a place to Mark Webber who stayed out longer. Both Brawn GP drivers struggled with grip levels on the harder compound and were unable to maintain tyre temperatures in the cool track conditions.
Their second stops came on lap 47 for Rubens who maintained his third position and lap 49 for Jenson who jumped Jarno Trulli and Kimi Raikkonen to take sixth position at the end of the 60-lap race.
Ross Brawn: "Today's result was a pleasing outcome to what has been a challenging home race for the team this weekend. Rubens drove a very composed race to achieve his second consecutive podium finish at Silverstone whilst Jenson recovered well from a poor start to score valuable points for our Championship challenge. We knew from the outset that our car does not work particularly well with the tyres at lower track temperatures and this was clearly evident at Shanghai earlier in the season. The balance of the car and the pace shown by Jenson in the last few laps of the race are however encouraging and we will be taking a close look at the issues that we experienced with the tyres to see what countermeasures can be taken. Congratulations to Red Bull for a superb one-two finish today and we look forward to taking the fight to them in Germany."
Vettel finished fifteen seconds ahead of team-mate Mark Webber, who used the same strategy. The final podium position went to Brawn GP Formula 1 Team driver Rubens Barrichello, who used a soft-hard-soft tyre strategy. Bridgestone's soft tyre proved to be the superior race tyre here for most competitors, giving a faster lap time than the hard, and giving good consistency too.
Hiroshi Yasukawa - Director of Bridgestone Motorsport: "Congratulations to Sebastian Vettel for his second race win of the season and Red Bull Racing on
their second one-two of the year. Silverstone has a great atmosphere and we have seen a fantastic crowd here throughout the weekend in what is both a very important market for Bridgestone and an important base for our Bridgestone Motorsport operation."
Hirohide Hamashima - Bridgestone Director of Motorsport Tyre Development: "Today we saw very hot pace from the Red Bulls in the cool weather conditions as they used the Bridgestone hard and soft tyres very well indeed. The best lap times of both Red Bull cars were over half a second faster than anyone else. The soft Bridgestone worked very well, especially after the second stint when there was more rubber down on the track. The hard Bridgestone did take longer to deliver its best lap time and we saw a number of illustrations of this as part of some interesting battles for position. Silverstone helped serve us an exciting fast race here today."
