Japanese GP: Mercedes Saturday quotes

Nico Rosberg - 15th: It's been a difficult weekend for us. Qualifying in 15th place is not where we want to be although I will gain some places due to grid penalties. The times were so close today and it's disappointing that we couldn't make it through to Q3. Our pace felt better on high fuel, so hopefully this will work out well in the race and I can gain positions.

Ross Brawn: Today has been fairly challenging for us and it goes without saying that we're not happy to see both cars knocked out in Q2. We've done a lot of work in the last few races exploring the performance variables of the car and whilst that has increased our understanding, it's still not enough to be competitive. The balance of the car isn't too bad though, and we seem to have stronger race pace, so we will try to race well and see what we can achieve.

Norbert Haug: We struggled to get further than the second part of qualifying, when the fastest time was a little less than a second quicker than Michael's best. He was missing two-tenths of a second to proceed to Q3 and Nico four-tenths. As a consequence, we will not be in the grid positions where we would have liked to start the race from.