Max Verstappen: "It feels good to be back on pole today!

"Testing was really good and then this weekend was a bit more tricky for us; it was difficult to get the balance of the car right due to the tricky conditions with the wind being quite strong. Heading into qualifying, no one knew where we all stood and it was very tight, but this is exciting for the sport. We made some good improvements on the car and also improved performance from FP3 to qualifying and in Q3 we had a little bit more grip. Ultimately, I am pleased with the performance of the car and was happy to be back competing again today. Looking to tomorrow, I have a good feeling and am confident ahead of the race. We know it is about looking after the tyres in the best way possible as anything can happen in the race. We have a good race car and hopefully we can show the same performance as we did today."

Sergio Perez: "My lap wasn't as clean as it could have been into turn one and that means two or three places when everything is so tight is up there. It was tricky, we were learning throughout qualifying, it was the first time we had run such a light car. We didn't get the maximum because we lost a set of soft tyres for Q3 on an aborted lap in Q2, that was a negative but a positive is that the car was performing well in qualifying. We have some work to do but what matters is tomorrow, and we are on the right side of the grid so we should be able to have a strong start. A lot of teams saved the hard tyre but we saved those softs and that means we will be on different strategies out there. The target tomorrow will be to make progress and onto the podium, things are really close and it is going to be a nice battle ahead."

Christian Horner, CEO & Team Principal: "It was a great lap from Max, the circuit was getting cooler, so it was getting a little trickier. He didn't think it was enough to take pole but thankfully it was and he put it together very well. It was very tight behind him, I have been saying the regulations are going to concertina the field and the start of this year is starting to show that, which make things exciting for everyone. It should be an interesting race tomorrow, this grid is so tight, there was only a tenth and a half between third and seventh so I am not concerned about Checo starting from P5. It's a long lap to race around here and I am confident he will be in a good place to compete for the podium."

Check out our Friday gallery from Bahrain here.