Max Verstappen: "It was a shame what happened in Q3 today but I am all okay.

"We only had three sets of tyres going into Qualifying and we were pretty tight going into Q3 but it worked out. My laps felt really nice in Q2 and the first lap of Q3 felt strong. Then on my second lap, the car started to feel a bit snappy and I had a big oversteer in T6. In T9 there was a big loss of rear end grip and the car spun out at high speed; I had an uncontrollable spin and the wheel fully locked. We lost aero performance due to some damage on the rear of the car, which caused the issue. The car span off and the situation was out of my hands unfortunately. It is a shame but, realistically, we wouldn't have been fighting for Pole. The lap was coming together really nicely and I think I could have been P3. Now we just need to look ahead to tomorrow. The car is not that badly damaged, so there is hopefully not too much to change on it. We have good mechanics and I trust them to make the changes we need to be competitive tomorrow. The race pace has been a bit off and we have had a few limitations over the last few races, but we will have to see how we go tomorrow."

Isack Hadjar: "In FP2, I didn't feel happy with the set up of the car but in FP3 I did from the very first lap, so I knew it would be a better day straight away. Halfway through qualifying I was on a bit of a plateau performance wise, which we corrected for that final lap, which I'm pleased with, so we did well there. The guys did a good job progressing and bringing upgrades this weekend and I extracted all I could from the car, but we had a few deployment issues when it mattered, so the result doesn't show its full potential. I think we should've been higher up the grid today, but tomorrow should be interesting with strategy."

Laurent Mekies: "The most important thing after this eventful qualifying session is that Max is okay. He delivered an excellent first run in Q3, and his final run was very fast until he lost the car in turn 9. The dynamic of the incident was quite unusual, and we lost aero performance on the rear of the car and it gave Max no chance to survive. As a team we take full responsibility for it and apologise to him.

Not sending Max out for a second run in Q2 was certainly a close call, but we knew we had to take some risks after deciding to approach qualifying with only three new sets of Softs to give ourselves more strategic options for tomorrow.

Once again, Isack has put together a very strong weekend so far, continuing to build confidence with every session. He kept improving throughout the weekend and delivered another solid qualifying performance.

With any significant upgrade, it is never simply a case of plug-and-play. The real challenge is to understand the package, identify its optimum operating window and maximise its potential over the course of the weekend. We are still learning but today was an encouraging first step. The improved pace we had demonstrated the progress we have made with the package we have brought to Austria.

A huge thank you to everyone back at the factory. This large upgrade package, covering many aspects of the car and PU, is the result of the hard work across the entire team. Seeing that effort reflected in our competitiveness today is a well-deserved reward for everyone involved.

Our full focus now turns to tomorrow. Another extremely hot race awaits us, and it will be interesting to see how we perform in these conditions."