Cyril Dumont, Renault: "An awesome result - it was the perfect result for Sebastian with pole position, fastest lap and the race win. Unfortunately for Mark it was more difficult, we had the pace to be first and second, but everything was over after Turn 2 for Mark. He made a very good fight back after that. It's great to be in both Championships for the final races."

"Both Jenson and Lewis drove good and combative races, scoring 22 world championship points between them; but, obviously, given our impressive points-scoring record over the past few grands prix, we'd hoped to achieve rather better than fourth and fifth when we arrived in Suzuka earlier this week.

"We didn't optimise our performance in qualifying yesterday, and today we struggled with our tyres at various times during the race. Moreover, Jenson was unlucky to get stuck behind Daniel [Ricciardo], and lost quite a bit of time after his first pitstop as a result.

"Lewis's second stop was excellent - a superb strategy call backed by super-slick work by our pit crew - and as a result Lewis emerged from the pitlane more or less alongside Kimi [Raikkonen], edged ahead of him through Turn One, then skilfully held him at bay and collected 10 valuable points for fifth place as a result.

"From Japan we fly to South Korea, where we'll be looking to score strongly. The tussle for this season's world championships - both drivers' and constructors' - will be extremely hard-fought. But all at Vodafone McLaren Mercedes will dig very deep over the final five grands prix in a big effort to ensure that we're right there, in the mix, competing for ultimate honours, when the dust finally settles on what's shaping up to be an extremely exciting battle. Bring it on!"

Stefano Domenicali: Personally, I don't believe in luck, but given what's happened these last couple of days, I'm considering changing my mind...The gods that didn't shine on us yesterday definitely took a shot at us again today! What happened to Fernando at the start is an example of the many variables that you cannot control in this sport and we have to accept it, but clearly all of us are very disappointed at the moment. That sense of regret actually increases when you consider what a splendid race Felipe had, producing a truly impeccable performance. It was nice to see him back on the podium after a long, a too long time! This second place is a very important result for him and for the team and it comes at one of the most difficult and delicate moments of the season. Decisions regarding his future? One step at a time, as now we are enjoying this lovely podium together. Today, we could definitely have picked up a rather different points total, but we have to accept the reality: tonight someone is laughing, but as the saying goes, he who laughs last laughs longest! Five races is a lot and anything can still happen. We have to react calmly to this cruel blow for Fernando and work with maximum concentration on development of the car, as indeed we have done all these past few months. If we are in this position of fighting for the title in the final races, it's because our work has been of a good standard, otherwise we would be a lot further back. Fernando's comments on our development? I can very well understand his frustration at the moment and you can be sure that we are doing our utmost to give him a car that matches his talent.

Pat Fry: A bitter sweet Sunday afternoon for us here in Suzuka. Felipe drove a fantastic race right from the start. He was quicker than Button in the first stint and was able to manage the tyres so as to delay his first stop which gave him the opportunity to get by at the pit stop. He managed it and also succeeded in passing Kobayashi, thus opening the door to a race based on two stops. The same thing happened with the Hard tyres, as he managed them very well, which set him up to get back on the podium after a break of almost two years. Quite different emotions when it comes to Fernando of course and it couldn't be otherwise, when one's race is over at the first corner after the start... Usually, our car is better in the race than in qualifying, but I have to say that, on top of that, we were definitely unlucky with the yellow flags which cost Fernando around a second and a half. Clearly we were not as strong as the Red Bulls, but we were definitely a match for the McLarens that in Singapore had seemed out of our reach. We must not react in an emotional fashion, but rather we need to stay calm and concentrate on the job of developing the car. That's the best way to react, right from the very next race in Korea. We brought some reasonably significant updates to the last few races and there's more to come for the next ones. It's true that sometimes, Singapore for example, not all of them worked in the right way, but it's equally true that that is something that has happened to others in this season of highs and lows. Now we start again practically from scratch and everything will hang on the development of the car race by race. We must try to be better than the others and we know we have every possibility of doing just that.

Michael ran a two-stop prime/option/option strategy, stopping on laps. His strategy made full use of his two available new sets of option tyres to gain 12 positions. In the final stint, he caught the cars ahead of him at over a second a lap but was unable to pass for P10. Nico was eliminated by a collision in turn two when he was hit from behind by Bruno Senna's Williams.

Ross Brawn: From where he started today, Michael drove a strong race, and it's a shame that he didn't get some points for his efforts. However starting from 23rd on the grid made that just too much of a challenge, despite a very good strategy and encouraging pace from the car in the lower temperatures. The accident which caused Nico's retirement was a great shame as the car was in good shape and he could have scored decent points if he hadn't been taken out. There were some encouraging signs in the race and we will take heart from that as we continue to work on improving the car.

Norbert Haug: A good performance and a good drive from Michael during the race, which saw us posting good lap times for the first time this weekend - and Michael setting the sixth fastest lap time around three-quarters of the way through the race. After starting P23 following his ten-place grid penalty, Michael came home in P11, chasing the car ahead during the last seven laps. He caught him quickly, setting better lap times in the final stint, but in the end he unfortunately could not overtake to score the last available point. Nico was eliminated during the first corner crash through no fault of his own, so no points today for him or our team. We are now looking forward to the race next weekend in Korea.

Both drivers started on Pirelli's soft compound tyres. Kimi pitted for his first set of hard compound tyres on lap 13, then his second on lap 30. Romain pitted for hard compound tyres and a new front wing on lap 1, served a ten second stop and go penalty on lap 7, then took another set of hards on lap 22.

Eric Boullier, Team Principal: "Obviously, it hasn't gone as well as we expected. We could see in Singapore, when Romain was back on track, that the other drivers were putting some pressure on him at the start. Here it was a little bit easier, but he made a small mistake misjudging his pace compared with Mark, which was a bit higher. I think he has made some progress, but it's unfortunate that this has happened again in these circumstances. With Kimi, the car's pace was not as good as we were expecting. Starting seventh we had higher hopes, but if you don't have the pace completely it doesn't work well. We couldn't put everything together in order to make his race more successful and gain more places."

James Allison, Technical Director: "The best thing that can be said about this event is that we scored some more points, but it's certainly not been the weekend we hoped for on Friday, nor the one we expected after Saturday. We're disappointed that Kimi had to race whilst looking in his mirrors rather than attacking those ahead and we need to face the fact that we need more performance from the E20 if we are to move up in the Constructors' Championship rather than resting on our very secure fourth position. It would have been much better for us to have scored points with both cars but sadly a first lap incident for Romain put paid to that."

Ricardo Penteado, Renault Sport F1 Team Support Leader: "The combination of corners and wide open throttle time at Suzuka makes the circuit a challenge for the engines so we introduced new units on both cars to maximise power and torque available. We had a trouble-free event on this front and will re-use the same engines in Korea. Kimi has not had the best of weekends so getting eight more points today is very positive and keeps him third in the championship. We look forward to Korea in just a week's time."

Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal: "An excellent drive by Nico and very encouraging to see such strong race pace on a track that has never really played to our strengths. We made the right calls on the strategy and for much of the race Nico was up there pushing hard to get ahead of Lewis. Paul's race was seriously compromised by a poor getaway, which we will investigate, and that meant we missed out on getting both cars in the points. In terms of the championship we've edged further ahead of Williams and Sauber remain just about in sight. I'd also like to pay special credit to both sides of the garage for their incredible effort this weekend. We kept them very busy and they did an amazing job under difficult conditions. Overall it's been a remarkable team effort."

Monisha Kaltenborn, CEO: "I can't express how happy I am! A podium finish for Kamui in his home country is simply incredible. He did an outstanding race today, particularly in the final part when he was under huge pressure from Jenson Button. He didn't make the smallest mistake and defended his third position in great style. Sergio was also in a position to score a great result, but unfortunately his attack on Lewis Hamilton didn't work out. Great compliments to the team which made progress during the whole weekend and finally delivered a great and very emotional result."

Giampaolo Dall'Ara, Head of Track Engineering: "What an exciting race, particularly the final laps! However, I think we were in control of things. We did the second pit stop earlier than initially planned, because Kamui's tyres had gone off. We had to make this compromise not to lose too much time in the middle stint and, at the same time, not to have a very long final stint. This was not easy for Kamui to handle, but he did a great job keeping Jenson Button at a distance while at the same time managing the tyres. Just the last two laps were more thrilling than we had hoped for, but in the end it all worked out fine. Kamui's race was absolutely brilliant. At the first pit stop we lost a position to Felipe Massa, but otherwise we would have lost one to Jenson. Sergio was on the same pace as Kamui, but in the end he could not benefit from that."

Mark Gillan, Chief Operations Engineer: Both drivers drove well today with strong pace throughout the race. Bruno's race was compromised with an early stop to replace a damaged front wing assembly and then with his subsequent drive-through penalty for contact with Rosberg. Pastor managed his tyres well throughout the race and brought the car home in a well-deserved 8th. We now immediately direct our attention to next weekend's Korean GP.

Laurent Debout, Renault Sport F1 team support leader: Both drivers finished higher than their starting positions and we scored four very important points with Pastor, so we can be happy with the race today. We introduced new engines this weekend and everything went to plan so we will look to carry this momentum forward to Korea in a week's time.

Luis Perez-Sala, Team Principal: "As it tends to be the case in races like this, I'm happy on one hand because we were competitive; we finished one lap off the winner which indicates that our pace was good. But on the other hand it was a shame that Narain had to retire. He made a good start and was running well but the car suffered a small issue with the bottom part and, for safety reasons, we had to stop him. Now we will see how big the problem is. But overall, it was a positive weekend because we progressed, conserved our tyres better and improved our times. We hope for this progress to continue."

John Booth, Team Principal: "We had a bit of a scare on the way to the grid, with Timo rightly stopping the car in the pit lane when he felt what he thought must be a problem with his left front wheel. Once we had the car safely back in the garage it was clear that he had actually struck a wheel nut lost from another team's car when he drove down the pit lane. This could have been catastrophic for us as it could have caused a lot of damage, but when we got to the grid we gave the car a thorough inspection and were very lucky to get away with it. Timo delivered an excellent performance in the race. As has seemingly been the case for several races, we lost time in the opening stint where not having the benefit of KERS makes it difficult to maintain track position. The remaining two stints were perfect and we managed to eat into Kovalainen to be within four seconds which, by the time we had taken a final blue flag for Hamilton three laps from the end, had opened up to eight seconds, although we can still regard this as an improvement. Charles seemed to struggle for grip on the opening stint with the Hard prime tyre and we opted to stop him early and get him onto the Soft option, which allowed him to recover some time. Unfortunately, at his final pit stop, Charles got caught out by the lack of grip in the pit lane and overshot the box, which required the crew to manhandle the car back into position and he lost a lot of time. Up to this point we had been managing relatively high air consumption on the engine, which then became terminal and Charles had to retire. Overall, we have achieved our objectives of staying in touch with the competition in front. We of course need to keep going that extra mile to try get ahead of them in the race, as this will leave us in a more comfortable position in respect of the Constructors' Championship."

The only drivers to start the grand prix on the harder compound were Jean-Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso), Charles Pic (Marussia) and Michael Schumacher (Mercedes) from 19th, 21st, and 23rd places respectively. But a first-lap incident that brought out the safety car prompted Red Bull's Mark Webber to switch strategies by moving onto the hard tyre. He rejoined in 19th place. The Australian took his second stop for hard tyres on lap 26, having worked his way back up to a points-scoring 10th and eventually finishing ninth.

The first of the frontrunners to make a stop were McLaren's Jenson Button and Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen, both of whom switched to the hard tyres on lap 13. Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi, who made an impressive start to run as high as second overall at his home grand prix, made the same move one lap later. Race leader Vettel made his stop for the hard tyres on lap 17 and was able to re-emerge in the lead thanks to some fast pit work from his Red Bull team. The last driver to change from the soft tyres during the first round of stops was Marussia's Timo Glock, who made his starting set of yellow tyres last for 20 laps with a full fuel load.

Vettel's final stop for the hard tyres took place on lap 37, from which he again emerged in the lead, with Ferrari's Felipe Massa in second having stopped one lap earlier, after making up eight places during the race from his grid position of 10th. The driver who made up most places was Schumacher, gaining 12 positions to finish 11th by using a strategy that put him on soft tyres with low fuel at the end of the race.

Williams driver Pastor Maldonado also used a different strategy to his advantage (similar to Toro Rosso's Daniel Ricciardo and HRT's Pedro De La Rosa) completing two initial stints on the soft tyre before a 20-lap final stint on the hard tyre that moved him up to a points-scoring eighth from his starting position of 12th.

Although Japan is often characterised by changeable weather, the race was held with track temperatures of 30 degrees centigrade at the start: increasing the demands on the tyres on what is already a very challenging circuit due to the flowing series of high-speed corners.

Paul Hembery: "At the beginning of the year, we had the closest start to a season in Formula One history, with seven winners from the first seven races. Now it looks like we might be in for a very close finish as well, after a Japanese Grand Prix where Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel adopted a textbook two-stop strategy to win the race and turn the championship on its head. Last year, a three-stop strategy was the preferred option but this year we saw only two stops for the majority of drivers. This underlines both the performance and durability of our P Zero tyres on the toughest circuit of the year in terms of lateral energy, even though the compounds are generally softer this season and conditions in Japan were a lot warmer than they were in 2011. We witnessed a great battle during the final laps between Kobayashi and Button for third place, which was based on tyre strategy with Button trying to get the most out of a fresher set of hard tyres. We'd like to congratulate Kamui on the first podium of his career, which couldn't come at a better place than his home grand prix, and also Felipe for his first podium of the year after a great race."