The Finn could only qualify sixth on the grid fဣor Sunday’s season-ending finale in Abu Dhabi after struggling for pace in Q3 💫as he ended up behind McLaren’s Lando Norris, the Red Bull of Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari. 

Bottas was over six-tenths slower than Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton, who was beat⭕en to pole position by title rival Max Verstappen. 

But Bottas explained his pace😼 struggles were down to prioritising his car set-up for the race and because he was forced to run an older-mileage engine. 

“I kind of hit a lap time limit,” Bottas said. “I think I actually did my best time in Q2 and I could never improve that.&nb♏sp;

“It felt like the more I tried, the set-up of my car didn’t have anymore in it. The way I set-up my car, I went for quite a soft set-ꩵup, mec▨hanically, because I feel it’s quite good for the race. 

“I was ho♒ping it would still be OK for qual💝ifying, but the grip level was improving quite a lot. 

“The other factor was that we had to change for an older Power Unit for today,🍸 which I knew that - at l🌠east compared to the Power Unit I had yesterday - it was going to cost me at least two tenths.” 

Asked why Mercedes opted to change his engine, Bottas replied: “We are more con✤fident with this Power Unit, for the reliability.”

Bottas expl𝓰ained thatꦡ he lost performance when the grip levels improved as qualifying progressed. 

“Basic🍒ally, once the grip level started to improve throughout the qualifying, I just couldn’t improve the lap time,” he said. “There was like a hard limit in the car and the more it started to roll, that was the limit.

Bottas added that Mercedes also lost time to Red Buওll in t📖he slowest corners. 

“I would say that Turn 5 and then Turns 6 and 7 have been a bit of an issue, but I would say the medium speed corners hav▨e been OK for us,” he explainedꦏ. 

“Those two pla📖ces have been a bit tricky, I can’t really say what is the reason for that but Red Bull always seems good in those kind of corners, anyꦉway.”