Valtteri Bottas won the F1 pole for the Portuguese Grand Prix on Saturday, depriving Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton of a record-breaking 100th Formula One pole.
After crashing and receiving no points in the previous race, Bottas claimed his 17th career pole.
“It’s a good feeling to be on pole, it’s been quite a while,” Bottas said. “I’ve worked very hard this week.”
He was 0.007 seconds faster than Hamilton and 0.34 seconds ahead than Max Verstappen of Red Bull, making him the third different pole sitter in three races. The others went to Hamilton and Verstappen.
“It definitely puts a smile on my face. I’ve been strong all weekend and it makes me really happy to put it all together,” Bottas said. “Qualifying hasn’t been my strong point in the first two races.”
Hamilton is going for his 97th victory on Sunday, while Bottas is going for his 17th and Verstappen is going for his 12th.
After topping the third and final practice session earlier Saturday, Verstappen looked to be on his way to clinching his fifth career pole, but he made a small mistake in the final part of qualifying – known as Q3 – when he went outside of the track restrictions and failed to set a time. As a result, his lap time was erased, leaving him with only one shot at the two Mercedes cars.
“It was a really difficult session to get grip, the car just snapped away from me and went wide,” Verstappen said. “It’s been really hit and miss anyway, the whole weekend. The layout of the track is amazing but the grip is not good.”
Hamilton also said the track, which was relaid with new tarmac for last year’s race, was very awkward to negotiate.
“It was a difficult session for everyone, it’s windy here and quite slippery,” the British veteran said. “Valtteri did a great job.”
Daniel Ricciardo of McLaren had a bad qualifying run as the temperatures in Portugal’s Algarve region cooled in the late afternoon. The Australian, who has seven career wins, was one of five drivers to be eliminated from Q1, while Sergio Perez of Red Bull went off track at Turn 4 and into the gravel, but had already completed enough laps to qualify for Q2.
Hamilton led Bottas and McLaren’s Lando Norris in Q2, with Fernando Alonso, a two-time Formula One champion, among the five drivers eliminated.
Verstappen was fastest in the third and final practice session, followed by Hamilton, Bottas, and Perez.
The third event of the season is the Portugal Grand Prix.
Hamilton is one point ahead of Verstappen in the championship. Hamilton has the lead thanks to a bonus point for the fastest lap in the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, which Verstappen won. Hamilton won the first race of the season in Bahrain.
After a terrible race two weeks ago at Imola, when he was involved in a crash with Williams driver George Russell after an overtaking move went wrong, Bottas needs to regain his form. In what could be his final season with Mercedes, Bottas has fallen to fifth place in the standings, behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
“For the mental process, I just put those mistakes to one side,” Bottas said.
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