I’m in the championship fight - Bottas

Valtteri Bottas stated "I feel I'm in the game" in the championship battle after securing his first pole position at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

The Finn took just three races to secure his maiden pole for Mercedes, edging out teammate Lewis Hamilton by just 0.023s under the lights in Bahrain on Saturday night. Having beaten Hamilton for the first time, Bottas was asked if it is now a three-way fight for the championship with his teammate and Sebastian Vettel, and he believes he is a factor in the battle.

"I think it's obviously very early days to speak about the title fight, how it's going to be," Bottas said. "It's going to be a massively long season, like I said in the first races, it's going to be a massive year in terms of development for the cars and which team is going to develop the most, that's going to be fighting for the title. It's too early early to say about the title fight. We are in the best two teams and I feel I am in the game."

With Bottas 0.3s off Hamilton in their first qualifying session as teammates and then reducing that gap to 0.1s in China last weekend, the Finn says he has been getting quicker as he gets more used to his new car.

"For sure every qualifying is different all the time, because we're in different tracks and facing different scenario. I'm definitively getting more and more comfortable with the car, and also working with the team to fine-tune the set-up all the time. I feel more confident in the car and towards the end of qualifying you need that. Today it felt I could extract the maximum out of the car and I'm pretty happy with the result."

Hamilton also stated his belief that Bottas is a title rival and was full of praise for his teammate's performance in qualifying, despite his run of six consecutive pole positions coming to an end.

"Well firstly a big congratulations to Valtteri, he's been working so hard and jelled so well with the team," Hamilton said. "Today he was just quicker, he did the better job, so hats off to him. The first lap felt great and I looked up and the time was so close, and I thought 'wow, that's a good lap, he did a great job.'

"But I was losing quite a bit of time through the first sector, it's generally my weaker point which is actually unusual, usually a stronger point for me. I'll work on it for tomorrow, but Valtteri found some great pace through particularly the first sector. The second and third ended up being quite good. Overall a little bit down. A great battle, that's how close qualifying should always be. It forces us all to be on the limit. I'm generally happy with the job I did and it's great for the team to be 1-2."