Flavio Briatore [Renault - managing director]:
"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]:
