These were very challenging conditions for my qualifying debut, especially as none of my limited pre-season testing experience with the Team was in the wet. I can’t deny it was disappointing - and a little daunting! Yesterday’s dry running showed a lot of promise so it would have been nice to get a better feel for where we are in performance terms, but we just had to make the best of it. In the end though I am very happy with the job we did today and where we have ended up. Clearly we were not able to show our full potential and yet we ended up in the right place relative to the cars around us - both ahead of Caterham and close to the cars ahead. So I look forward to a return to dry conditions - which is what we hope to see tomorrow - and to my first Formula 1 Grand Prix. To be honest, whatever the weather brings, this is an exciting moment for me and one I have been looking forward to for a long time.

I’m pretty pleased with how today has gone when you look at the circumstances. I hadn’t really expected to be sitting in the garage for 30 minutes seeing a river forming on the track outside when I’d contemplated my first F1 qualifying experience. With that in mind, I’m really encouraged with how we fared. With the conditions starting to clear a little in the dying minutes of the Q1 session I knew everything hinged on that final lap. We were improving in each sector so I knew we would be okay, it’s just a little disappointing that my last lap was affected by the Yellow flag. Now my thoughts turn to tomorrow and I can’t wait, rain or shine.

It was a big ‘ask’ of two rookie drivers to face a qualifying session like the one we’ve experienced today, but then we have absolute faith in our line-up and that has been rewarded today. Both Jules and Max performed admirably in what must have been very daunting conditions and we are very pleased with where we find ourselves today. I have to admit that we were disappointed to be faced with a wet qualifying. The car looked good in the dry yesterday and we were hoping to use qualifying as the barometer it can be in showcasing relative outright performance. Nevertheless, that’s racing and we’ll continue to feel encouraged by a very positive start to the weekend - and hopefully the season.