Nico Rosberg (1st)
“This is a very special moment for me. The whole weekend went perfectly. My first pole position, now my first win in Formula One - it really is fantastic. But it’s not only this; it’s the first win for the new Silver Arrow and for this great team. That is really special for me. Thanks to everybody in the team, here in China and in our factories in Brackley and Brixworth. It makes me very proud that we have improved the car so quickly. I will never forget this race, and the last 20 laps felt as long as if I was racing in the Le Mans 24 Hours! But then crossing the line was so intense. We will enjoy this success, but our feet are still on the ground. We are still not where we want to be, we are still working hard to understand the car and the tyres in all conditions, and we will keep pushing to improve our race pace even further. We will see how that works out in Bahrain.”
Jenson Button (2nd)
“Congratulations to Nico today - he drove a faultless race. But who knows what we could have achieved if we’d had a clear run at him in the final stint? Our pace was very good and the aim was to come out ahead of that following pack of cars - which we would have done if we hadn’t lost time in the pitstop - and chase him down and put him under pressure. The delay in the final stop was just one of those things though - all the other stops had been very strong this weekend, but that one in particular wasn’t. The delay pushed me back into the traffic, which was a little bit of a shock, but the pace and consistency are there in the car and I was able to get back into second position, after a good battle and a satisfying pass on Sebastian (Vettel). It’s disappointing not to have been able to challenge for the win, but it was a fun race with tons of overtaking and lots of battling. More important, it’s been a great day for Vodafone McLaren Mercedes because we’re now leading both world championships. It’s very important to be consistent, and it’s nice to be back on the podium, but there are just a couple of little things we need to improve upon to make life even better for ourselves.”
Lewis Hamilton (3rd)
“I had a great race! And, although neither Jenson nor I was sadly able to win, I’m really happy that Nico took his first win today, but I’m also really pleased for the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team: both Jenson and I were able to get back on the podium and score some more good points. It was a tough race, though: I’d love to have been able to challenge Nico, and I think maybe I’d have been able to if I’d started on the front row, but we still managed to move forwards from the start I had a lot of fun overtaking people too. I reckon I got everything out of the car that I possibly could. It’s also a major positive to know that we’ve got a very consistent car. We just have to make sure we keep moving forwards, that’s all. Mercedes AMG, Red Bull, Ferrari, Lotus and Sauber are all up there - that’s a serious championship and it’s going to make for great racing for the fans to watch. It’s been a while since I was at the top of the drivers’ world championship - but we’ve got to remain focused. I think if I just continue to work as I am then the wins will surely come, and I’ll keep pushing for some better results in the future.”
Mark Webber (4th)
“Trying to get the balance right for the whole race was very tricky. In the end, fourth was not too bad; it wasn’t the maximum, but it’s very tight between the teams at the front. At some points of the race, I saw P13/ P14 on the board, so I have to be satisfied with fourth place. I made a few mistakes running wide trying to push onto the back straight, it’s hard there as you can get onto the marbles. I think the strategy was good, but it’s always a gamble with the three stop, as to what traffic there might be. Congratulations to Nico, he deserves the victory, and also to Mercedes. For me it’s three fourths on the bounce now, it’s good points and we leave here reasonably satisfied, but we need to keep boxing and keep improving.”
Sebastian Vettel (5th)
“I had no tyres left at the end of the race. Sitting in the car, I was reacting with brake balance, diff, everything to try and keep the tyres, but by the last few laps, I knew the only chance was trying to keep ahead of Kimi; I think he ran into the same sort of problem. We got some good points and it was a good recovery from 15th. Mercedes won pretty comfortably today, so well done to them. We were generally too slow on the straights, and we’re losing time there; it made it difficult to pass other people. But overall, I’m pretty happy with fifth given the poor first lap. I missed out on the start, I wasn’t entirely happy finding the revs and I lost the initial bit when the lights went off. Usually I’m pretty quick with that, but today I was one of the last ones. The first lap wasn’t great, but with the strategy we managed to come back. I think the weekend was good for us, we learned a lot and hopefully we will take these lessons on board and go in the right direction for next week.”
Romain Grosjean (6th)
“It was a very good race, I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately I made a little mistake fighting with Mark (Webber) but overall it was a good performance. The car felt great and the team did an amazing job to give us such a big improvement from Friday, so I’m especially happy for the guys to be able to finish the race and get some good points on the board. To be up there fighting with McLaren and Red Bull is a great feeling and I’m happy to have got my season started properly. We’ve had high hopes since P3 on the grid in Melbourne, and now after a few setbacks it’s time to aim higher. There’s always room to improve and hopefully from here we can aim for the top five and eventually podiums. We’ll take things step by step but I’m feeling confident for the rest of the season ahead.”
Bruno Senna (7th)
“It was a great result for the team to finish with two cars in the points today. It was a tough race and tyre wear was high. Our strategy worked for us today but we’re still learning and improving together. We aim to continue to get better throughout the next few races.”
Pastor Maldonado (8th)
“It was very tough today. I lost places at the start and it was difficult to overtake but we had good pace. We were able to fight all the way to the end so I’m happy to get some points. It was a great result for the team.”
Fernando Alonso (9th
“We knew this would be a difficult race and that’s how it turned out. We were always in traffic, without an opportunity to exploit the car’s potential and when you are behind other cars, the tyres get worn much more easily. Choosing to do three stops clearly meant we would be forced to do some overtaking, but with the top speed we had, it turned out to be almost impossible on the main straight, so I had to invent some overtaking moves at other points on the track, where I could make better use of the car. Obviously, this does not leave me very optimistic for Bahrain, on a track where traction and speed are vital, exactly the areas where we are weakest. Once again next week it will be mainly a case of damage limitation. I don’t want to think of the classification because the priority is to improve the performance of the F2012. This does not mean however, that I have lost hope, quite the contrary. Last year, we believed all the way to Spa and there’s no reason not to at the moment, when we are third in the classification, just eight points off the leader. Sure, we definitely need to make a good step forward to make the car quicker. In Spain we will have major updates but so will the others and so it’s not that I’m expecting a miracle of going one second quicker than the others.”
Kamui Kobayashi (10th)
“Of course after what we did in qualifying the race result is disappointing. I’m not really sure what happened at the start, my car just didn’t move, it was a bit strange and I lost positions immediately. Then I was stuck in traffic for most of the time, also we made the second pit stop a bit late and the tyres had gone. Quite often we have recovered in the race from a bad qualifying, but today it was the other way round. So we have proven we can be strong in both qualifying and race, and next time we will put this all together.”