USA GP | Bottas claims the Pole Position, while Hamilton qualifies in P5
The Finnish Driver set his fifth pole position in 2019, whereas his team-mate struggled with the W10 in Austin and will start from the fifth position on the grid.
Valterri Bottas will start from P1 at the Circuit of the Americas, marking the 200th Formula One first row for Mercedes. The Fin underlined the accomplishment, pointing out how the team did a great-work overnight on the W10 set-up to improve the car balance.
"This is very satisfying – it’s been a while since we’ve last been on pole, so this is a great feeling.
“I was struggling with the car yesterday, but we’ve made a number of changes overnight and today the car felt much better.
“I knew going into qualifying that the car had the potential to fight at the front, I just had to get a good lap together.”
Bottas continued remarking how his lap was not perfect. Despite, with an outstanding performance in the last part of the circuit, the Finnish driver managed to obtain the fastest lap in Austin, having the advantage to lead the race from the beginning. Bottas underlined that he his confident about the victory’s potential, as the W10 looked particularly competitive over the long runs.
“I’m very pleased with my first lap in Q3; it wasn’t quite perfect, but good enough to put us on pole.
“It’s always an advantage to start from the front; now it’s up to me to try and maintain the lead at the start tomorrow.
“Our long runs looked good yesterday, so hopefully we can get a strong result in the race."
BOOM! YOU. ARE. THE. MAN!! 👊@ValtteriBottas takes his fifth @F1 pole of 2019 and his first @COTA! #USGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/CrlYxw7c55
— Mercedes-AMG F1 (@MercedesAMGF1) 2 novembre 2019
Differently, Lewis Hamilton had a poor performance in Texas. Hamilton admitted that the car had the potential to be on the front row. Nevertheless, the five-time Formula One World Champion affirmed that he was not able, unexpectedly, to do his best during the qualifying session.
"This must be one of the worst qualifying sessions I’ve had in a long time. Clearly the car had the capability to be on the front row, I just couldn’t put the lap together.
“Valtteri did a great job, so congratulations to him.”
Hamilton continued that he will work hard to understand why he did not succeed in being fastest, trying to do his best to challenge his main rivals in the race.
“Now I’ll have to try and figure out what went wrong today and how I can get myself to the front.
“It’s going to be a tough challenge trying to get past two Ferraris, a Red Bull and Valtteri, but I’ll continue to work at it and hope that I can do a better job tomorrow."
