Singapore GP | Bottas baffled by his poor form in Q3
Valtteri Bottas' Singapore qualifying did not go as planned and the comparison with his teammate, author of a stunning pole lap, appears rather unmerciful.
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Valtteri Bottas managed to match teammate Lewis Hamilton on laptimes during the Singapore GP qualifying. Up until Q2 he was glued to the Briton's laptimes, but in Q3 the skills of the four-time world champion made a clear difference and the performance on Bottas' car was not there. The Finn is understandably not pleased with fourth, also because he will not have the advantage of starting on the clean side of the track.
Bottas unleashes his frustration over his poor Q3 outing: "P4 is obviously not ideal, I can't be happy with today's result. Everything was going pretty well from FP3 all the way up to Q2, but then the others could find big chunks in Q3 and I couldn't, I just didn't really feel the track improvement."
Hamilton's scorching lap put the Briton almost 0.7s clear of his teammate. "Lewis put in a great lap-Bottas declared- but seven tenths is obviously a big gap, so I will need to have a look and analyse what exactly the issue was. The long-run times between Ferrari, Red Bull and us looked fairly comparable, so it's a shame I couldn't qualify higher and attack from the front row. We are definitely more competitive here than we were last year. The car has been improved and we also chose the right set-up direction."
Nonetheless, Bottas is in for a fresh start tomorrow, lining up with the hopefuls for a chaotic race and eager to fight the Ferraris. "I'm optimistic for tomorrow; it's a new day and at least one Ferrari will start behind me. We still have a long race ahead of us and I will push hard to try and get ahead of Sebastian. With three teams in the mix, everything is possible. It's difficult to overtake on this track, so both the start and the strategy will decide who wins this race."
Bottas unleashes his frustration over his poor Q3 outing: "P4 is obviously not ideal, I can't be happy with today's result. Everything was going pretty well from FP3 all the way up to Q2, but then the others could find big chunks in Q3 and I couldn't, I just didn't really feel the track improvement."
Hamilton's scorching lap put the Briton almost 0.7s clear of his teammate. "Lewis put in a great lap-Bottas declared- but seven tenths is obviously a big gap, so I will need to have a look and analyse what exactly the issue was. The long-run times between Ferrari, Red Bull and us looked fairly comparable, so it's a shame I couldn't qualify higher and attack from the front row. We are definitely more competitive here than we were last year. The car has been improved and we also chose the right set-up direction."
Nonetheless, Bottas is in for a fresh start tomorrow, lining up with the hopefuls for a chaotic race and eager to fight the Ferraris. "I'm optimistic for tomorrow; it's a new day and at least one Ferrari will start behind me. We still have a long race ahead of us and I will push hard to try and get ahead of Sebastian. With three teams in the mix, everything is possible. It's difficult to overtake on this track, so both the start and the strategy will decide who wins this race."