A very tight Qualifying session this afternoon at Istanbul Park, with less than 1s separating the pole sitter from Sergio Perez who set the 7^th fastest time. The fastest lap of the day - 1m22.868s – is a new record for the circuit and it belongs to Lewis Hamilton’s W12. The official pole man, however, is his teammate Valtteri Bottas, as the Brit took a new ICE for his PU resulting in a 10-place-grid-penalty.

Tomorrow Bottas will be starting from P1 for the 18^th time in his F1 career, making him the only driver -along with René Arnoux – to have reached so many pole positions without winning a World Championship title.

“Today was a good Quali - not easy conditions, especially in Q1 which was on the edge with the damp parts and still in Q3 there were damp sections but I put together some good laps,” said Bottas.

“On the final lap, I missed a little in the last sector with some understeer but other than that, the lap was really nice. I enjoyed it and obviously as a team result, today was pretty ideal.”

P1 for tomorrow 🇹🇷🏁@LewisHamilton had the upper hand today by a tenth of a second, but with the penalties I’ll be starting on pole tomorrow. Great job by the team today @MercedesAMGF1 👊#VB77 #F1 #TurkishGP pic.twitter.com/e3n4uAWjbq

— Valtteri Bottas (@ValtteriBottas) October 9, 2021

With only two points between the title contenders, Bottas’ position gives Mercedes a chance to try and hold Verstappen behind in a circuit where the silver arrows seem to be more comfortable.

“Max is starting next to me and the Ferrari has looked strong this weekend, so it’ll be a tough race but we’ll give it our all. We have a good race car, I just need to keep the focus on my own race, avoid mistakes and stay ahead,” he continued.

“Strategy will always play a part but I’m feeling confident and looking forward to the start and getting the job done.”