Zak Mauger/Motorsport Images
Bottas confident has has advantage despite qualifying P3
Valtteri Bottas is confident in his chances at the Russian Grand Prix despite qualifying third, due to Lewis Hamilton’s tire situation.
Hamilton was caught out by having a lap time deleted in Q2 for exceeding track limits and then seeing the session red flagged due to Sebastian Vettel’s crash, leaving him without a time with two minutes remaining. To ensure he got through, Hamilton had to use soft tires for his final lap rather than the mediums that Bottas qualified on, giving the Finn a likely advantage in terms of Sunday’s strategy.
“It has been looking pretty good all weekend,” Bottas said. "Also, in Q1 and Q2 was all nice and smooth but, in Q3, to be honest, I don’t know. I found some gains but, obviously, the others found more.
“I think here it’s pretty sensitive with the tires, getting it right. In the first run in Q3 my tires were too cold; in the second run I don’t know, I just couldn’t go any quicker, so there are some question marks there but, actually third is a pretty good place to start from. And I think I’m on the right tire, as well.”
Bottas ended up over 0.6s off Hamilton in Q3 and was bested for second place by Max Verstappen, and he admits he thought he’d be closer to his teammate.
“Q3 was a tricky one. In the first run I didn’t feel my tires were ready -- at the end of the out-lap I had a big snap, so I lost already a couple of tenths on the run down into Turn 2 and when I got there I had a massive snap oversteer, so the tires only came in, really, towards the end of the lap.
“I was just waiting for the second run and then there were no mistakes as such, in Turn 2 I had a tiny lock-up and went a bit wide. But, to be honest, I don’t really get it why I couldn’t match Lewis’ times in Q3. It just didn’t feel I wasn’t gaining much grip from the previous sessions. I think even in Q2 it felt better.
“So a few question marks for me about what really happened. Or maybe I was just playing games and wanted to start third…”
Chris Medland
While studying Sports Journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, Chris managed to talk his way into working at the British Grand Prix in 2008 and was retained for three years before joining ESPN F1 as Assistant Editor. After three further years at ESPN, a spell as F1 Editor at Crash Media Group was followed by the major task of launching F1i.com’s English-language website and running it as Editor. Present at every race since the start of 2014, he has continued building his freelance portfolio, working with international titles. As well as writing for RACER, his broadcast work includes television appearances on F1 TV and as a presenter and reporter on North America's live radio coverage on SiriusXM.
Read Chris Medland's articles
Latest News
Comments
Comments are disabled until you accept Social Networking Cookies. Update cookie preferences
If the dialog doesn't appear, ad-blockers are often the cause; try disabling yours or see our Social Features Support.