"Fernando's fourth place today is an excellent omen for the start of the season. He drove a superb race, fighting all the way from the back of the field. Even though we were set back twice by the safety car, what he managed to do was exceptional. In particular, his overtaking of the McLaren in the closing stages was spectacular. We still have to work, but it is encouraging to see that we are not the only team that needs to improve. As far as Nelson goes, this was his first race and a difficult one for him. But I am sure this has been a learning experience for him, and I am confident that in the races to come he will do better."


Pat Symonds [Renault - executive director of engineering]:

"I think that Fernando's performance today was just wonderful. He used everything that we gave him and more. We were rather unlucky with the safety cars and debated whether to switch strategies under the safety car, but our tyre wear would not allow us to change on to the soft tyre and reach the end of the race with just one stop. As it was Fernando got severe graining on the soft tyres in his final stint, which gave him a lot of understeer. Nelson's difficult weekend continued as he got hit on the start line which caused considerable damage to the rear of the car. He found it very difficult to drive, which explains his slow lap times and maybe even his retirement as we are still investigating what happened."


Gerhard Berger [Scuderia Toro Rosso - team principal]:

"Bourdais proved all through the weekend that he was the right choice to put alongside Vettel. He was a bit unlucky in qualifying, but he had a fantastic race, fighting with the best he managed to keep his position even towards the end on old tyres. He made no mistakes, reading the race in the right way from beginning to end. I think we have a great team and showed a great performance all weekend. But the luck was not on our side and it hurts to be in a safe fourth and lose it with two laps to go. We can try again next Sunday, but fourth places don't come that often so you have to take them when they come. One point, or maybe two, is better than nothing. At the moment we do not know what exactly caused Sebastien to stop at the end."


Stefano Domenicali [Ferrari - team principal]:

"This has definitely been a very difficult start to the season and we have got off on the wrong foot. However, we should not react in an over emotional way to this. We weren't a phenomenon before and we're not carthorses now. We have to work out exactly what happened to the engines on both F2008s and they are being sent immediately to Maranello for analysis. As for the performance, we saw that when we were not running in traffic, we could run a very competitive pace. This shows that the potential is there, but we have to be in a position to exploit it, which means starting from the front. The whole team has not performed to our usual standard. We have to roll our sleeves up and react, as we know we can."


Luca Baldisserri [Ferrari - technical director]:

"There's not much to say about a disastrous start to the season. We did not work well on any level and this is the consequence of that. We know how important is reliability and we were severely lacking on this front. It is absolutely ages since we have seen two engine failures in a race. We have to look at every detail of this weekend to understand what went wrong and how we can improve. We have seen the technical potential is there and we have to do everything to use it to its maximum, starting in qualifying."


Tadashi Yamashina [Toyota - team principal]:

"This was a tough afternoon for every team because it was the first race and there were such high temperatures. But under these conditions Toyota must show our teamwork and I'm so disappointed that Jarno performed so well but he suffered a reliability issue with his battery. We must analyse the fault to make sure it doesn't happen again. Timo will have gained a lot of experience from his first race. Fortunately he's fine and I'm very glad about that. We will now do our best to improve at the next race."


Aguri Suzuki [Super Aguri F1 - team principal]:

"I would like to thank all my staff and drivers as I know that it was a very difficult winter period for the team. We are now here in Australia and although we have not completed enough pre-season testing, I think that everyone has done an excellent job this week, even though we had limited running in Friday's practice, Qualifying and in the race. Anthony was very unlucky after the start, but Takuma had a good start and showed well in the race. We did not finish both cars, but we are here, we have started the 2008 season and our fighting spirit has not diminished."


Christian Horner [Red Bull - team principal]:

"A massively disappointing race, especially for Mark at his home Grand Prix. Unfortunately, it was one of those Sunday afternoon's when nothing seemed to go right for us, although we weren't alone in that respect. Thankfully the next race is only one week away, so we'll look forward to leaving Australia tonight."


Fabrice Lom [Red Bull - principal engineer Renault engines]:

"It was a pure race technically, we suffered two accidents due to the fault of others, but that is racing... We can see that the new rules have put some fun and hazards into the race! We have to deal with that - the best drivers will be on the track at the end of the races and we will be among them."


Mike Gascoyne [Force India F1 - chief technical officer]:

"A very disappointing first race for Force India and obviously a great opportunity to score points missed, although I am sure a lot of the press releases will also be saying that. Giancarlo was unlucky at the first corner, with someone outside him and with Glock and Piquet not under control coming down on the inside. He just had nowhere to go. With Adrian we had a hydraulic failure, a result of having to rebuild his car from yesterday and not being able to do any installation checks, which was a shame as he was running very competitively and would for sure have had a good result. But overall a positive weekend in terms of car pace and we have to look to get a better result in Malaysia."


Dr Vijay Mallya [Force India F1 - chairman and managing director]: