“It's not the easiest of circuits, so I'm pleased I did lots of preparation work on the simulator before I arrived. I'm feeling positive ahead of tomorrow's qualifying.”

Jarno Trulli:

“That was not a particularly good day for me. We need to adjust the car balance, so we will have to look into it tonight. The track is good, though, and I like it. In karting we used to race on a lot of street circuits, so learning it doesn't take long, but you need to find a compromise on set-up because there is a mix of slow corners and higher-speed sections with long straights.

“The most important thing is how much the surface will change during the weekend. The asphalt is quite smooth, and while it was predictably slippery today, the grip should improve so it will be hard to get the set-up right.”

Adrian Sutil:

“It was an interesting day for us to run on a new track. The circuit is very challenging, but feels more like a permanent race track than a street circuit as it has lots of run-off areas and long straights and very smooth asphalt.

“It was, however, difficult in the morning with lots of dust, making it very hard to get a good lap out of it. In the afternoon it was better, but it was still quite dusty and once you got a little bit off-line you had no grip at all.

“Everything was really as normal, with a standard programme with the tyres. We have some issues with graining as usual, but overall I am quite pleased with the day. The seamless-shift is a very good step, and I was happy with the progress.”

Nick Heidfeld:

“I really like the new Valencia street circuit, as they have done a very good job on the layout. Of course at the start the track was extremely dirty, but obviously the conditions are the same for everybody. We had no technical problems and I was able to do the tyre comparison as planned. I'm not happy with the lap times yet, so now we shall look into the data and figure out how we can improve.”

Sébastien Bourdais:

“The track is quite nice, and I think they have done a good job with the design at their first attempt. Of course the grip level will come up over the weekend; by the end of the day the grip on the racing line was good, but as soon as you put a wheel off-line it was very difficult.

“The car is not too bad, although I am still struggling a little bit with rear-end instability on corner entry and have some traction issues, so we still need to fine-tune the balance for tomorrow.

“Apart from the beginning of the morning, when the tyres wore quickly because of wheelspin and the car was sliding a lot, the tyres seem to be holding up quite well now the track conditions have stabilised. Let's see what happens when we go to the next step tomorrow afternoon and empty the fuel tank.”

Rubens Barrichello: