Formula 1

Valtteri Bottas: “It’s never easy to get pole position”

2 Mins read
Credit: LAT Images

Valtteri Bottas gained his fourth pole position of the 2020 FIA Formula 1 World Championship at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

The Finn driver tipped Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team team-mate Lewis Hamilton to pole by just less than one tenth of a second.

Bottas has been a bit underfed recently for being outshone by Hamilton so this his time to shine. He finished second at the Portuguese Grand Prix but crossed the line twenty-five seconds behind Hamilton.

Bottas said: ‘It’s never easy to get pole position but I’m really enjoying this track. When you push flat out, it’s a beautiful feeling and I knew I had to dig deep on the final lap. For me, Turns 2 and 3 were something I really had to work on today, and I only got there right at the end; the same at the final corners, where I’d struggled with some instability but I knew I really had to push at the end, so I risked it and the car just turned in nicely.

I was able to find the small gains I needed and it’s a great feeling when you manage that – I definitely had the shakes after that one! Tomorrow, it’s going to be a good fight: it’s one of the longest runs of the calendar into Turn 1, so no doubt Lewis and Max will be chasing me. But it’s a good place to start and hopefully the pace is good. Game on.”
 
Lewis Hamilton praises his team-mate for beating him to pole but bemoans his final lap. it was all set for the Brit to be on the top spot but was beaten on the final runs.

Although he is starting from second, Hamilton still thinks he can give it all he’s got to get the win tomorrow and add to his ninety-two race win record.

Valtteri did a great job this afternoon and it was a pretty poor final lap from me, but these things happen and you can’t always get it perfect. This circuit is unbelievable, it’s a classic with amazing history, and the speeds that we are going round it are pretty mind blowing; I’m so grateful to be here and to have the performance that we have, which is really remarkable,” said Bottas.

The tyres are working better here than they did in Portugal last weekend but it was still a real challenge out there today. For tomorrow, I’m pretty certain we will see quite a boring race, because the track is quite narrow and there’s nowhere you can really pass after the first chicane.

So, it’s going to be a tough challenge when following, but hopefully the DRS will give us opportunities into the first braking zone. We saw Max was very strong on his race runs this morning, so he will be a threat, and I’m just going to give it everything I’ve got tomorrow and see where we get to. 

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