Formula 1 championship 🉐leader Valtteri Bottas says he does not view being out-qualified by Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton in Bahrain as a “disaster”. 

For the first time in his F1 career, Bottas - who leads the drivers’ stan🌱dings following his commanding victory in Melbourne - was outpaced by a teammate at the Bahrain International Circuit as he had to settle for fourth on the grid. 

Hamilton pipped Bottas by just 0.066s to secure third place behind the dom💎inant Ferrari pair headed by Charles Leclerc, who claimed his first-everꦏ F1 pole position in Bahrain. 

“It was OK in qualifying but it could have been better,” Bottas 🥂admitted. 

“It was pretty close between Lewis and me, I think he just got a bit better laps in the early runs, in Q2, and I had to chase him a little bit. In Q3 I was pretty pleased with my lap in the last run but all the weekend I haven’t been really able to nail a🌺 proper lap. 

“I can see the differences and it’s small tܫhings here and there, I could have definitively been quicker today, but it was not the easiest car to drive in qualifying. 

“We’re speaking of bein♐🌄g a few hundreds of a second behind Lewis, so it’s not a disaster and we are there where the car’s pace is.”

Afte🀅r qualifying, both Hamilton and Mercedes boss Toto Wolff conceded the reigning world champions were lacking “significant” straight-line speed compared to Ferrari.

Asked if he thinks Mercedes is losing out in any other areas, Bottas replied: “𝔉Based on what we’ve seen today it’s mainly straight line sp🌳eed. 

“There is a couple of corn♛ers where they are a bit better, then in general in the other corners ꦐit’s very similar and then there’s a couple of corners where we are better. 

“I would say the lap time difference came purely from the straight line, which is a very diffe༺rent picture from Melbourne, ♊because there we were identical or a bit better than them, so it’s quite a big change. 

“Obviously, we have to look more at ourselves than at them, but they’ve obviously foꦏund something and I would say the pace difference we saw today matches more what we had seen in winter testing.

“I don’t think we’ve gone backwards, I think they were off the pace in Melbourne and back to their pace here. We didn’t see this kind of straight🍎 line speed in Melbourne, so that’s something they’ve improved and we need to improv𒉰e.” 

Despite the deficit in qualifying, Bottas rema🉐ins confident Mercedes can challenge for the win on Sunday. 

“The start ꦏis going to be the first opportunity,” he saidꦉ.

"Here it can be a but messy, but hopefully we can get a good getaway from the line and hopefully we can really fight with them. I hope and I trust we really have a strong race pace to fight with them for the race win. I look forwa😼rd to tomorrow, right from the race start.”