F1 | Abu Dhabi GP | Valtteri Bottas aiming to end the year on high
After missing out on the pole position Yas Marina circuit, Abu Dhabi. Finnish driver wants to end the year on high by battling for the win with Max Verstappen and team-mate Lewis Hamilton
After looking strong throughout the weekend Bottas was again denied of the pole but this time it wasn’t team-mate and seven-time world champion but it was Dutchman Max Verstappen, who by a magical lap was able to pip the Mercedes driver by just the margin of 0,086s.
Putting the upset of Saturday’s Qualifying session behind Finnish driver is aiming to finish the race with a strong result and wants to challenge the Dutchman for the win.
“I think it’s going to be a good battle between Max, Lewis and myself and anything can happen as we’ve seen in F1 lately. I’m looking forward to an exciting season finale tomorrow and will fight hard to end the year on a high.”
Bottas said they were fast on the mediums but just didn’t have the pace to match Max Verstappen on the Softs and the car didn’t behave the same as it did on the mediums.
“Congratulations to Max on pole position, he did a good job today. We saw in FP3 that the Red Bull was pretty quick; they managed to optimise their car and really extract the maximum from the Soft tyre, which is something we struggled with all weekend.”
“We looked stronger on the Medium tyres, but you need to be quick on the softest compound to be on pole.”
Pole was in his grasp - but @ValtteriBottas had it snatched away in a dramatic finish to qualifying in Abu Dhabi 😑 #AbuDhabiGP 🇦🇪 #F1 pic.twitter.com/qGrmb2vM9d
— Formula 1 (@F1) December 12, 2020
Furthermore, Bottas reckoned the drop in the temperature at the end of Qualifying session led to understeer and that didn’t help his lap times either.
“As the track cooled down towards the end of the session, I started to suffer with understeer, which made it tricky to improve the lap times. I think I still managed to get everything out of the car, but we simply weren’t quick enough today.”
Despite of the heart break in Qualifying Bottas is eyeing on the Sunday’s race and will be trying to win the race from Max and Lewis. He will be starting the race on mediums which help to extend the first extent and maximize the strategy.
“The points are given out on Sunday though. We have a strong car and will start the race on the Mediums, so it’s all still to play for.”
