Q1 3rd 1m21.723s (on Primes)
Q2 4th 1m21.415s (on Options)
Q3 3rd 1m20.829s (on Options)
“We’ve been very competitive this weekend, and we’ve brought a strong package out here with us; but, clearly, Red Bull has made a very good step forward too, and it looks like their car is slightly more aerodynamically efficient than ours is.
“I’m still very motivated for tomorrow though. As ever, Sunday is a different story, and we generally enjoy better pace in the race than we do in qualifying. And let’s hope our reliability can top theirs tomorrow, too.
“Anyway, third on the grid is almost as good as pole position here, if not a little bit better: it’s a long way down to the first corner, and you can get a good draft and pass people. So I’m hoping to get a decent start, make good progress early on, and then drive a strong but straightforward race in which I’m able to do something good and get up near the front.
“Looking further ahead, we’ve got a fantastic team behind us, and we know that the car has a great deal of potential. We just need to try and close that gap as quickly as possible.”
MARTIN WHITMARSH
Team principal, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
“Both Lewis and Jenson drove really well in qualifying here in Barcelona, and the result was an uneventful session for us. Ideally, we’d been aiming to sew up the second row, but in the end we narrowly failed to achieve that, finishing up third and fifth.
“Even so, we’re in a strong position from which to launch an ambitious race effort tomorrow. We expect to be closer to the Red Bulls on race pace than we were today – and, spearheaded by the proven ability of our two world champion drivers to deliver superbly gritty race performances under pressure, we’ll be pushing as hard as ever to bag as many world championship points as possible tomorrow.”
