“Considering the dustiness of the track, we made a very promising start on set-up this morning. We were able to go quicker on each run without changing too much, and we took a very good baseline into the afternoon session.

“In P2, our adjustments were again spot-on but the sheer volume of traffic meant it was difficult to immediately confirm our final set-up changes. Nonetheless, we're in pretty good shape and I'm looking forward to tomorrow.”

Heikki Kovalainen:

“I immediately found a good balance at the front-end and slowly dialled in the rear during the first session, but the track was very green this morning which meant there was little point in making big changes to the car.

“In the afternoon, we made a number of changes which seemed to pay off for us – by the end of the session, the car was working well and the balance felt really good. Today's progress is very encouraging.”

Timo Glock:

“It's always enjoyable to come to a new venue, and I'm impressed. It was pretty hot out there, but the track is good fun and the layout is interesting. I like street circuits because I raced on so many of them during my time racing Champ Cars in America, but apart from the harbour and the buildings this doesn't really look like a street circuit because it has long straights.

“We had a good day. The first practice was a bit difficult and the track was very dusty, but we expected that. The afternoon was much better and the car got more-and-more into the set-up window. I hope we can keep going in this direction, because it has been a productive day.”

Robert Kubica:

“In the first free practice session we concentrated on learning the new circuit. The surface was still very dirty in the morning, so we had to wait until the track picked up some grip. In the second free practice the conditions were better, although it was still quite slippery, and our main focus was on tyre evaluation and basic set-up work.

“Anyway, the track conditions were changing every 30 minutes. Because of this it is quite tricky to make a prediction for tomorrow. We now have to analyse the data.”

Nelsinho Piquet:

“I was able to take advantage of the three hours of practice today to complete plenty of laps and gather lots of interesting data, which will be useful for the rest of my weekend. I really like the track, and it's a lot of fun in the car.

“The level of grip was poor, but we are used to this sort of thing on street circuits. I will now work with my engineers to optimise the set-up of the car, so that we can have a good final free practice session tomorrow morning and approach qualifying in good shape.”

Sebastian Vettel: