James Vowles, Team Principal: "I'm so pleased.

"It's been tireless work from the factory. We didn't get everything right earlier in the year and we paid the consequences of that. But instead of burying our head in the sand, we dug deep and we invented a way of doing something, which was a huge undertaking. It's nice to see the reward is a car that's able to scratch into the top ten. We have to acknowledge that it's one track, and there are some weaknesses in the car that will be exposed at other tracks, but it's a great feeling to see that the hard work has paid off. It won't be enough, but it's a step in the right direction and it demonstrates that we are able to develop the car. Looking ahead to tomorrow, if there were no safety cars and no mistakes, it would be a one stop. But it's Baku, so there's a high chance that's not going to happen. Let's see what we get tomorrow."

Carlos Sainz: "Q3 for the first time this year makes me very happy, so thank you to everyone back at the factory for their efforts to bring us the new chassis and these upgrades. Each lap through the sessions felt good and we maximised everything we could in qualifying to achieve that P9 result. It's a clear step forward in the right direction but the weekend is not over yet. Tomorrow, even though it will be tough, I will do everything I can to hold onto the Top 10 and bring home the best result possible!"

Alex Albon: "The upgrade is performing as we expected and the positive now is that we've got the foundations. Now we're not talking about taking out weight anymore and can focus on aero upgrades, we can take this forwards into next year. We've hit our targets with this upgrade programme which is, in itself, an important thing to do. And now hopefully we have a car that can challenge the midfield at tracks that suit us. Honestly, today's qualifying result is frustrating, mostly because we were slow on the straights and I don't know why. The corners were quite good - Q3 worthy - and Carlos showed that, so there are some positives. Unfortunately, it's going to be a bit of a tough ask to get into the points from P13 tomorrow, but we'll try."