Valtteri Bottas: 'Disappointing' to miss out on Bahrain F1 front row
Valtteri Bottas admits he found it "disappointing" not to have secured a place on the front row of the Formula 1 grid for the Bahrain Grand Prix as Mercedes struggled to match Ferrari for pace thro𒈔ugh qualifying on Saturday.
With teammate Lewis Hamilton receiving a five-place grid penalty following a gearbox change, Bottas was left to lead Mercedes' charge through qualifying, but could only take P3 behind the Ferrari duo of Sebastian Vet🌠tel and Kimi Raikk༒onen.
Valtteri Bottas admits he found it "disappointing" not 🍌to have secured a place on the front row of the Formula 1 grid for the Bahrain Grand Prix as Mercedes struggled to match Ferrari for pace through qualifying on Saturday.
With teammate L♍ewis Hamilton receiving a five-place grid penalty following a gearbox change, Bottas was left to lead Mercedes' charge through qualify🍸ing, but could only take P3 behind the Ferrari duo of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen.
The Finn finished 0.023 seconds shy of Raikkonen in second place, and admitted he was disappointed not to have broken onto the front row 🐻to improve Mercedes' chances of a first win of the season on Sunday.
"For us it is disappointing not to be on the first row. Ferrari was quicker today, but for sure we made some g༒ood progress during the weekend," Bott♕as said.
"We tried some things which didn’t work. That is why sometimes the gap was bigger. I think we have the right ♕setup in the car for the race, so difficult to estimate with the race pace, still a long race tomorrow so anything can happen.
"We will definitely go for it and💟 hopefully Lewis can come back🍸 to get some good points and we can put some pressure on these guys."
Mercedes appeared 🎃to have a healthy pace advantage over Ferrari 🌃in Australia, and Bottas conceded he was unsure why the tables appeared to have turned in the space of just two weeks.
"I don’t know what is going on🐼. I agree we are not having the pace this weekend that we expected coming here, but we also didn’t have anything new since Melbourne," Bottas said.
"It is a very different circuꦍit, different tarmac, different temperatures, so for sure we need to understand completely why. We are struggling a little bit with ove꧑rheating issues with the tyres, less so in the evening sessions, but still we have work to do.
"Like we have been saying all th♊rough the beginning of the season, we are not miles away. Today Ferrari this weekend so far has been a quicker car and that is where we are.
"We wಌere better in Australia and we need to understand why we were not quickಌest today, but for sure we still have tomorrow to see how the pace is."
