Bottas clocked 1: 15.875 to 145 thousandths of Hamilton. “It was an incredible lap,” Bottas commented on the performance that gave him the pole position in the third qualifying stage.
“I honestly think it was one of my best laps. I have a good feeling.” On Sunday, Bottas will enter the race as third in the drivers’ world championship standings with 185 points. Verstappen leads with 287.5 points and Hamilton is second with 275.5. “Valtteri did an incredible job! He has run very well in the last races,” celebrated Hamilton at the end of qualifying. “I didn’t think we had this pace, but blocking the first start is something very special,” confessed the multiple champion of the race. world. In addition to achieving the 19th pole position of his career, Bottas acquired a certified replica of the helmet with which Juan Manuel Fangio became world champion in Formula 1 for the first time in 1951. The qualifying test began with a Very pleasant temperature: 21 degrees Celsius in the environment and 43 degrees on the track. About eight minutes into the ‘Qualy 1’, Canadian Lance Stroll’s (Aston Martin) car seriously damaged the front left suspension when hitting the retaining wall, after skidding in the curve prior to the great straight of the racetrack. The session was stopped with the red flag while the car was withdrawn from the track and resumed more than 20 minutes later. At the end of the first qualifying round, Bottas was the best with a time of 1: 16.727, followed by the Monegasque Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) at 21 thousandths of a second; Spanish Fernando Alonso (Alpine), Canadian Nicholas Latifi (Williams), German Mick Schumacher (Haas) and Russian Nikita Mazepin (Haas) were eliminated, as well as the injured Stroll. After three discreet free trials, world champion Lewis Hamilton was the best in the ‘Qualy 2’ with a time of 1: 16.474, but only nine thousandths ahead of Max Verstappen. Those eliminated were the German Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin), the Finn Kimi Raikkonen (Alfa Romeo), the British George Russell (Williams), the Italian Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo) and the French Estéban Ocon (Alpine). In the ‘Qualy 3’ the reaction of the Mercedes cars happened. Red Bull had the ‘pole position’ within reach, but the silver arrows appeared in a dizzying way to leave Verstappen and Pérez in the second row. “I think I did a good last lap, but I don’t know what happened, qualifying didn’t go the way we wanted,” said Verstappen. “Being third is not bad, but it would have been better to start second.” Despite having gone up to fourth place for the start, ‘Checo’ Pérez did not lose his optimism: “tomorrow anything can happen, it is a very long race and we have to be patient”. -Four drivers will start from the bottom-In Sunday’s race four drivers will start from the bottom of the grid. The Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) and Japan’s Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri) were penalized on Friday for changes they made to the power unit of their cars. On Saturday, Britain’s Lando Norris (McLaren) received the same penalty for installing the fourth engine of the season; Frenchman Estaban Ocon (Alpine) was also penalized for fitting six new components to the power unit. Britain’s George Russell (Williams) was penalized five positions at the start after failing to participate in the second test run due to his gearbox replacement.