It was the reigning world champion’s team-mate, Mark Webber who delivered another pole for Red Bull, while Lewis Hamilton put in a strong lap in the McLaren to guarantee himself an uninterrupted view of the run down to the first corner this afternoon. Felipe shares his row with Nico Rosberg who set the sixth best time for Mercedes. The order at the top shows that nothing stays the same for very long in Formula 1 and a combination of yet another regulation change regarding engine mapping and the fact that teams do not always introduce major changes at the same time means the hierarchical map is in a constant state of flux, even if one team still seems to be at the top of the pile.

It makes predicting the likely outcome of today's tenth round of the championship almost as difficult as it was back in March in Australia. Every race this year has had some of the uncertainty of going to a new track because of the tactical trio of new elements, DRS, KERS and Pirelli tyres. How easy will it be to pass another car in the DRS zone is one question mark, while the fact that the Prime tyre is working very well over a long distance means that a one-stop strategy might finally be the top choice today. However, that is not entirely clear, while the biggest unknown concerns the weather. Summer has definitely not made any attempt to attend this race meeting and today, rain is reckoned to be on the menu. Starting from fourth and fifth, a podium has to be the minimum target for Scuderia Ferrari, but the cliché that “anything can happen” looks like being the order of the day today.

Stefano Domenicali: “First of all, on behalf of Scuderia Ferrari may I offer our condolences for the victims of the tragic incident in Norway. Seeing once again the extent to which human folly can drive people is always shocking and makes everything else seem unimportant today. All in all, I think the result matched our expectations. There is still a gap to the quickest, but it is definitely smaller than it had been a few races ago, which confirms we are working in the right direction. It might rain tomorrow, which would add further uncertainty to a race that already looks very open.”

Fernando Alonso: “We are neither surprised nor disappointed, quite the contrary in fact. This grid is more or less what we could have expected, from what we had seen in free practice yesterday. We though the Red Bulls would be three or four tenths faster than us and that was the case and then even Hamilton went very well, especially in the first sector and got in between us. In fact, McLaren had so many new parts here and you could see they were working well. I am happy with my lap and with the result and anyway, this year we have seen that we have always gone better in the race than in qualifying. Let’s see what the weather will do, as rain is forecast. If it turned out to be dry, then we can claim to have a 25% chance of winning and a bit less if it rains, but only because so far, in the wet others have been better than us. Maybe tomorrow the situation could turn around, you never know. I am still aiming for the podium, but if the chance of a win comes along I won’t need to be asked twice. Also at this track, we have seen the updates we have introduced helping to improve our performance, race after race. Clearly, we must take a further step forward if we want to be up there with the best.”

Felipe Massa: “I can’t claim to be completely happy with this qualifying, because some cars were faster than ours. That might not be surprising in the case of the Red Bulls, but it definitely is the case with Hamilton’s McLaren. We will aim to make our usual step forward in the race, but we know it won’t be easy. Sure, if it had been ten degrees warmer, I would not have complained! Especially with the Medium tyre, we struggled a bit and that’s why I used my first set of Softs right from Q1. At this track, tyre wear is very low, therefore it was not much of a penalty, not even in terms of the race. The big unknown for the race will be the weather: we have the maximum aerodynamic downforce possible, which should be a help if it does rain. In any case, in the wet it will be vital to make the most of any opportunities that come our way.”

Pat Fry: “No surprises at the end of the day. We knew the Red Bulls would be quicker and clearly McLaren, at least with Lewis, has made a significant step forward compared to Silverstone, be it because of a return to the Valencia situation in terms of engine mapping, or because of the updates introduced here. For our part, we are where we expected to be: the gap to quickest is more or less the same as in Valencia on a different track with different temperatures. If we had been given the choice, we would definitely have raised the temperature by ten degrees or so, but that’s not within our capabilities…Just as it won’t be possible for us to control the weather, which looks like being very unsettled. Rain is predicted, but it’s not clear at the moment how heavy it will be or when it will fall. That means we need to be ready to manage every eventuality in the best way possible. However, if it does not rain, from a strategy point of view, one has to consider there is a big performance difference between the two types of tyre: therefore, even if wear is much lower, it’s not a given that it might not be a good plan to do one more stop and reduce the number of laps on the Prime to a minimum.