Vettel laments poor Red Bull start

Red Bull

Sebastian Vettel: "It was difficult race and a hard day in the office. I'm not entirely happy, we could have finished maybe one position higher up, but we had a good recovery in the end.

"We were definitely stronger towards the end of the race and it was good fun, but when it's up and down and up and down, it's quite difficult. I don't know what the problem was when we had to change the nose of the car; I wasn't sure if I had damage or something stuck at the front - maybe a piece of rubber or something.

"I tried another lap, but it wasn't the right thing to do, so we decided to come in and change the nose to make sure. It lost us some time, but it was the right thing, as I was told there was some damage to the front left of the wing."

Mark Webber: "It was an interesting race and a difficult first lap. I don't know where I got damage to my front wing, but I had to pit for a new nose. I lost a lot of time with that - and on the few laps before when it started playing up.

"We had to pit and when you're out of position here it's tough - you have to look after your tyres and when you catch people your tyres get killed, so it's chicken and egg. If you push past them, you have to pit earlier and commit to another stop. It was a mystery with the pace; I was stuck behind Force India, you see the McLarens weren't doing so much and Seb was just chipping away."

Ferrari

Fernando Alonso: "This second place feels like a victory. Having finished the race in Sakhir almost a minute off the winner, today [Sunday] we overtook one of the two Red Bulls and we fought right to the very end for the win. On top of that, we have made up a lot of points on the Red Bull and the McLaren drivers, which makes the outcome of this weekend even more positive.

"At the end of the second stint of the race came the key moment: maybe Maldonaldo pitted a bit early and we stayed out on track, but we lost time behind a backmarker for a whole lap, partly because there was a yellow flag on the last part of the main straight. Then, with seven laps to go, I suddenly lost grip at the rear: I asked the team if something was broken because the handling of the car changed from one moment to the next, for no apparent reason.

"However, in the final stages, the Williams was still very quick and, right at the end, we were also lucky to hang onto second place as Kimi was coming back at me. This championship is very hard to interpret with all the different winners and the performance of the top teams going up and down from race to race. We definitely did not do the best job when it came to designing the car - there is still much to do - but we can be proud of how we got the most out of our potential, probably over and above the limits of the car.

"After two Grands Prix - China and Bahrain - where we suffered a lot, to be back for the podium is very positive and gives us confidence for the rest of the Championship. We must continue to bring updates all the time for the car, because it is all very close and the slightest thing can make the difference."

Felipe Massa: "Today [Sunday] my race was affected by a penalty that I had to take on lap 28. Honestly, I don't think I did anything wrong and I believe it is better to look into the detail of what happened, because I was in the middle of a group of cars and I definitely did not try to overtake anyone.

"It's a real shame, because up until then, the race was going well for me and a place in the top ten was comfortably within my reach. I was in the group with the Red Bulls and the McLarens and I could match their pace. I had a good opening lap when I managed to make up a lot of places.

"I am happy that Fernando was able to fight for the win all the way to the end, as it shows our car's potential has definitely improved: we still don't have the quickest car but it seems we are going down the right road. I want to congratulate Pastor, who is a great friend: the taste of a first Formula 1 win is something amazing and I can understand how he feels right now."

Caterham

Heikki Kovalainen: "I think we got as much out of the car as we could this afternoon [Sunday]. I had a good start, passed Senna and was hanging on to the pack ahead up until the second stops. The first stint on the options was good, and we stayed on the soft tyres right up until the last pitstop but maybe the last stint on the hards was a couple of laps too long.

"Still, it was a decent race and we showed we have decent pace on Sundays, more than enough to easily pull away from the teams behind, but not quite enough to be able to fight throughout the whole race with the cars ahead.

"We knew this track was going to be one of the tougher ones for us, but now we go to Monaco which will give us a chance of fighting higher up, so we'll keep pushing to close the gap and aim to take another step forwards at the next race."

Vitaly Petrov: "I'm pleased with how I drove this afternoon [Sunday] and, like Heikki, I don't think we could have got much more performance from the car today [Sunday]. Yesterday [Saturday] we found a good KERS map for qualifying but this afternoon [Sunday] it wasn't working as well in the first and second stints, and I think that's where we lost some time to Heikki.

"The tyre degradation was higher than we'd seen in the long runs in practice, so we need to look again at why that happened and how we can fix it for future races.

"Apart from that it was one of those afternoons when we got as much out of the race as we could so now we'll move on to Monaco where the circuit layout and the difficulty of passing should give us a better chance of pushing the cars ahead throughout the weekend."