Qualifying quotes - Clipsal 500 Adelaide.

James Courtney - Stone Brothers Racing/Jeld-Wen

"The guys were a little bit nervous about coming back here. It was good to pay back the team; they've been working some crazy hours over the break getting the cars ready. It was also good to give Ross and Jimmy (Stone - team owners) something back to repay their faith in me. We definitely had good speed on our test day last week. We didn't run new tyres on the Jeld-Wen Falcon whereas my team mate did and we did a good time for the tyres we had. We knew that we had quite good pace and we would be somewhere near the front. We've been pushing really hard for this. I'm not going to lie and say that we knew we were going to take pole. It's a nice surprise, a great result and I'm super happy."

Jamie Whincup - TeamVodafone

"We are very happy to be starting on the front row of the grid tomorrow. While I felt I struggled a little bit early on in the session the car really came good in the final session. Personally I was getting a little anxious in the second session but my engineer Ludo (Lacroix) kept telling me the track would come to us and he was dead right. I have to say I quite like the new qualifying system, it really seems to suit my style of driving. I was never great at the one lap shootout. It will be really important to get a good start tomorrow and avoid any Turn 1 mayhem. My goal is to try and settle into a race rhythm early as it is will be a long hot race."

Garth Tander - Toll HSV Dealer Team

"We are really happy. Today was the first chance we have had to run greens on the VE Commodore, so to be in the top three, we are really happy with that. The car is probably not as nice as we would like it as a qualifying car. It is not as sharp and as nice through the turn 4, 5, and 6 complex as you would like, but we gave it a run this morning in practice on the used practice tyres, and we did a low 23, so we are pretty confident it is going to be a better race car. So, we are happy to be up the front and out of any carnage tomorrow. We are learning on the run, and tomorrow we go into the unknown by running a race distance for the first time in the VE. It should be the same as the VZ, but you don't know until the heat of battle."

Mark Winterbottom - Ford Performance Racing

"The car was quite good but a little bit nervous into turn 8. We made some very good improvements throughout the day, took care of our tyres and stayed off the walls. After leading practice and getting the fourth spot in qualifying - a second row start for tomorrow, I am happy with this start to the weekend."

Jason Richards - Tasman GMC Motorsport

"Having been P1 after the first part of qualifying, then P2 after the second session while still using old tyres it was beginning to look good; then I tried a little too hard, had some brain fade, did all the things race drivers do, and then the car ran out of fuel with a couple of minutes to go and we ended up fifth."

Craig Lowndes - TeamVodafone

"This was the first time qualifying under the new system and I think it will take a little while for everyone to get on top of strategy. The car was quite good but still needed a little more turn on cold tyres. For us the focus is now on getting out of qualifying mode and concentrating on finding a good race set-up."

Todd Kelly - Holden Racing Team

"I am sort of a little disappointed but given the fact it's a new car and we really have only done minimum testing we really can't complain. We are going to be a lot wiser by the end of this weekend, as far as what the car needs and particularly what it needs to go fast because we really haven't had much of a chance to do that - especially on a track like this which is a little bit faster than our test track. So given all that we are reasonably happy."

Russell Ingall - Stone Brothers Racing/Caltex

"While the first experiment with the three 10-minute runs worked well on the longer Clipsal layout, there is no doubt that it is going to be very interesting on some of the smaller circuits we visit. It was amazingly busy among 31 cars in the first 10 minutes, but we managed to get through and eventually qualified eighth despite losing a bit of time. I think the Caltex Falcon should have some reasonable car speed for tomorrow's first race. I think we are in reasonable shape and hopefully it won't be as hot tomorrow."

Steven Johnson - Jim Beam Racing

"There are very positive signs that the car will be good in race trim and I can't wait to get out there tomorrow. The car was really good in practice and after the second qualifying session we made a change to the car set up for the Top 10. I was confident I could qualify within the Top 5 but 9th place is a great start for tomorrow."