Selected quotes following qualifying:
Felipe Massa - Pole
A fantastic day for me and to get my first F1 pole is an emotional moment. I can look back and think how much I have had to fight to achieve this. I am emotional and happy and hope to get many more poles in my career. I want to thank the team for having given me a fantastic car, but thank you also to my father: without him I would probably not be here in Formula 1. Tomorrow I will drive my race thinking about mine and the team?s objectives in both championships. We know we have a great package while the Bridgestone tyres are consistent and perform well over a long run.
Michael Schumacher - 2nd
Getting myself on the front row is definitely not something I can complain about, but today I definitely did not deliver a great qualifying performance, failing to get all the potential out of the car. I aborted my first run on new tyres in Q3 after I ran wide at Turn 1 and I also made a mistake on my second run when in any case, I took a slightly more cautious approach to the lap, knowing I only had one set of tyres left and that it would be better to be second or third rather than not managing to do a reasonable time. It?s better to be safe than sorry. I am very happy for Felipe on getting the first pole of his career. He drove an exceptional lap and I have to say I don?t think I could have beaten him, even if I had not made any mistakes. We can be optimistic about the race as, from what we have seen so far, everything is in place for us to do well.
Fernando Alonso - 3rd
Third position was a good result for me today. We knew that we would not have enough to beat the Ferrari package over one timed lap, but we do believe in the consistency of the Michelin tyres and what they can bring us in the race. Our preparations have been focused on the race since yesterday morning, so it is a good result for us to be high up in qualifying. I think it will be an exciting start to the race and that we will see a group of cars running together in the opening laps. But we also know that the most important thing tomorrow will be to finish, to bring home points in both championships.
Giancarlo Fisichella - 4th
We knew all weekend that Ferrari would be quick, and that it would be a tough battle to get on to the front row, but we are in the next best position. The car felt much better today on the other type of Michelin tyre, it was easy to drive and the performance was consistent on longer runs. We know that it will be a tough race tomorrow, but we will be fighting all the way.
Nick Heidfeld - 6th (starts 5th)
I am a little bit surprised that everything went so well. Our performance in Hungary was, in my opinion, due to exceptional circumstances. If we compare today?s result to the races prior to then the improvement is an enormous step forward. It shows the guys in Munich and Hinwil worked really well during the summer break, and here we have some more aerodynamic improvements including a modified front wing. Nevertheless I am realistic and think it is going to be harder for us in the race, but our goals are points.
Jenson Button - 7th (starts 6th)
I was obviously hoping for something more from qualifying today, although we have been struggling a little bit in the last sector here - on the long straight and the three very slow corners at the end. That's where we have been losing out to Alonso. On the positive side we have been looking good on the long runs, as we demonstrated on Friday and this morning. So it's looking like we could be better off in the race, in which case P6 on the grid isn't so bad
Kimi Raikkonen - 8th (starts 7th)
The times are very close today so even a small improvement could have made a big difference in where we qualified. I think we had expected to be slightly higher up, but I will move one place on the grid to seventh, and as we have seen many times before anything is possible. The car is handling quite well, and you never know what strategy the others are using, so all we can do now is to wait for the race tomorrow.
Robert Kubica - 9th (starts 8th)
It was a good qualifying as we have both cars in the top ten. We struggled with the set up this morning and had understeer, but suddenly in qualifying it became oversteer. It went from one side to the other and unfortunately the car was really difficult to drive. However, I managed pretty well to push on one lap and I shall see what happens tomorrow. The conditions are changing and we should have more rubber on the track, which should help to make the rear more stable.
Jean Todt - Ferrari
A great qualifying for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro who will occupy the whole front row of the grid tomorrow afternoon. I am very happy for Felipe for his first ever pole position. Our package, with the support of exceptional partners like Bridgestone and Shell once again showed itself to be very competitive today. Taking into account the consistency of the performance of the tyres in race trim, there is every indication we can do well tomorrow. As usual, to have a clear picture of the situation we need to clear up the usual unknowns of strategy and how the tyres will react as the track gets more and more rubber down, without forgetting crucial factors like reliability. The answers to these questions will have to wait until tomorrow afternoon.
Pat Symonds - Renault
Things went pretty much to plan for us. We chose to switch to the other specification of tyre after our problems yesterday, and that has undoubtedly been confirmed as the correct decision. Making that change gave the car a good, driveable balance that we managed to fine tune during practice this morning, while our running on older tyres confirmed that the tyres will be consistent in tomorrow's race. Ferrari have been very quick all weekend, and certainly were in qualifying as well. I think they seem to have an advantage on the first lap, but we have seen the balance of power switch overnight already this season. Starting from the second row, we are in the right position to race them hard for the win.
Mario Theissen - BMW Sauber
That was the best qualifying result our young team has achieved so far. Tomorrow we presume we will start from fifth and eighth, which is an excellent position to be in for the race. In all three sections of qualifying Nick?s performance was very strong, and Robert, in only his second qualifying, did an impressive job.
Gil de Ferran - Honda
We certainly would have preferred to be a bit further up. In the case of Rubens we just couldn't get the balance to his liking on new tyres. Jenson did a great job in Q2, but we haven't been particularly fast in the last sector all weekend and unfortunately that cost Jenson a few places on the grid. However, both cars have been very competitive and consistent on long runs and used tyres, which bodes well for the race.
Ron Dennis - McLaren
We have a good race strategy which should give both drivers every opportunity to achieve strong finishing positions in the race tomorrow. Kimi and Pedro are both pleased with the handling of their cars, so we look forward to a competitive Turkish Grand Prix.
Sam Michael - Williams
In relation to qualifying, Mark did a good job to get the car into the top ten and Nico made it into Q2. Tyres tomorrow will play a big part in the race, so we will work hard on the remaining parts of our strategy tonight and look to score some points. We had no problems today in terms of the car, all the systems functioned well.
Christian Honer - Red Bull
It was unfortunate for David to be delayed by Sato who went off in front of him at Turn eight. He was looking as if he would have comfortably made the cut to the second session. Christian optimised his car's set up and did a good job. He was unfortunate to narrowly miss out on getting through to the final session. We are now in a position to pick our strategy for tomorrow and will be pushing hard for points finishes.
Pascal Vasselon - Toyota
In terms of our grid position for tomorrow that is obviously one of our lowest results of the season but we understand the reasons for that. We changed Ralf's engine as a precaution yesterday evening, preferring to accept the ten-place penalty rather than risk a failure this weekend. So that meant we had to adapt his strategy accordingly. He did well to go fifth quickest in Q3 but he will start 15th tomorrow. We have a different strategy for Jarno, who had a different day. He struggled for grip, and that is why he missed out on the top ten. Still, this is a circuit where we can hope to make up ground in the race. We knew that this would be a hard track for tyres but it is clear that the Bridgestone tyres we have are well suited to its demands. We will be starting lower down the grid than we expected but we remain confident that our strategy can bring both cars home in the points tomorrow.
Dominic Harlow - MF1 Racing
At the start of the qualifying session, we found that the increased track and ambient temperatures had caused the circuit to drop off a little bit, with a little bit more oversteer on the early runs. I don't think the starting grid will necessarily reflect the true pace of our cars. We just kept looking more and more competitive as the day progressed, particularly Christijan in the second session. Our programme this morning indicates that we've got good tyres for the race, and we think it's going to bode well for a strong performance tomorrow. We're looking forward to it.
Aguri Suzuki - Super Aguri
The complete version of the SA06 is showing potential but we have not had enough time to set-up the car and you can see this from our Qualifying times today. Takuma was progressing well in the car this morning, but unfortunately experienced a significant chassis problem during the Qualifying session. Sakon has done a consistently good job and made no mistakes so far this weekend. He has been improving with every session and I hope that he will be able to finish the race tomorrow.