Chinese GP qualifying quotes: Pirelli

Paul Hembery, motorsport director: "It's clear that tyre strategy is going to play a key role tomorrow and we saw that in qualifying today. With a difference of around 1.5 seconds between the medium and the soft tyre, qualifying on the softer compound was the natural choice in terms of outright time. However, the soft tyre delivers its best in qualifying over just one lap - a little bit like a qualifying tyre - which is why the drivers left it until late in many of the sessions to go out and set a time

"Although tyre degradation will improve when fuel loads go down and more rubber is laid down on the track tomorrow, the medium tyre seems to be the tyre to race on, so this really opens up a number of different possibilities in terms of strategy.

"We think that most drivers will go for three stops although two is possible, especially for those starting on the medium tyre. If we'd brought the hard tyre, we would probably be looking at one stop, so although degradation of the soft tyre here has been on the high side so far, we're confident that we're in for another action-packed race tomorrow - as has so often been the case in China."