Valtteri Bottas happy with 'good enough' pole lap to beat Lewis Hamilton

Valtteri Bottas

Bottas happy with 'good enough' pole lap

Martin Macdonald

Saturday 13 April 2019 09:50

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Valtteri Bottas is content with his “good enough” lap in order to claim pole position for the Chinese Grand Prix after finishing quickest in qualifying, but has admitted that he wasn’t entirely comfortable behind the wheel as he fought off the attention of Lewis Hamilton.

The two Mercedes drivers were as close as 0.007 seconds in terms of their lap times at one point in Q3, but Bottas improved in his second run and eventually finished 0.023 seconds adrift of his team-mate.

Bottas beats Hamilton to China poleRead more

The Finn reckons it could have been better, however.

"It's been a good weekend so far, and I'm starting from pole,” he told Martin Brundle of Sky Sports after the race.

“I felt really comfortable in the practice, but honestly I struggled in Q3 to get the perfect lap in but it was good enough.

"The lap was ok, not completely how I wanted it but luckily it was good enough for pole and the car has been really good this weekend and Lewis also managed to improve a lot in the qualifying. It was super close.”

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Bottas currently leads the Formula 1 driver’s championship, one point ahead of Hamilton after the opening two races in Australia and Bahrain.

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