Europe Sunday quotes: Mercedes

Nico Rosberg - 6th: "That was a really exciting race. I had a bad first few laps and lost positions, then the Safety Car came out at a bad moment for me. After the restart, I thought I would end up finishing out of the points, because I had the oldest tyres and therefore no grip, which made it very hard to defend. We had planned to try a one-stop strategy but had to convert to two stops, and thanks to the strategy guys, we were on fresh tyres when everybody else was struggling. I was in P12 on lap 47 and P6 at the end, so it clearly worked and we are very happy with a good team result after such a chaotic race, with two cars in the top six. A great result for Michael with his podium and I am happy to score some more nice points."

Ross Brawn: "Congratulations to Michael and the team on a fantastic and well-deserved podium finish. Michael demonstrated today that if we can give him the opportunities, he will get a great result. And well done to Nico as well. He was in quite a difficult position at one stage but came back and gave the team a really strong points score today. The early part of the race was quite difficult for us, and our early strategy did not come together as the tyres behaved differently to our pre-race predictions. So we had to react, and we did so extremely well, leaving our stops as late as possible to give our guys fresh rubber at the end. It was such an exciting end to the race, and I am very proud of both of our drivers, everyone here in Valencia, and back at our factories in Brackley and Brixworth today."

Norbert Haug: "A marvellous race from Michael with the right speed and the right strategy. Coming from 12th on the grid to third on the podium is a good achievement, which Michael truly deserves and he achieved that with a great drive. Nico started sixth and lost five places during the first lap, which was a big handicap - so to climb back to sixth place was a good recovery. Since his win in China, Nico has scored one point less than Fernando Alonso, who brought home the most points in the last six races. As for the rumour spread by another team that Michael used his DRS flap where he should not have done, I can confirm that this was not the case, as our data proved and the stewards of the meeting confirmed. I am really pleased for Michael and the team. We always believed in each other and today was the first of hopefully more podiums to follow."