Bottas left with "smile on his face" after denying Hamilton 100th GP pole

Valtteri Bottas was left with 'a smile on his face' after putting behind him his early-season struggles to clinch his first pole position of the season at the Portuguese Grand Prix.

The Finn pipped Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton at Portimão by just 0.007secs to give the team its 71st front-row in 141 grands prix in the turbo-hybrid era.

After qualifying only third in Bahrain and labouring to seventh at Imola, Bottas pulled it all together and cited his work on tyre warm-up as the driving force behind his pole.

"It's definitely left me with a smile on my face because in the first two races of the season the qualifying hasn't been - at least the Q3 session - hasn't been the strong point," said Bottas.

"Getting everything out of the tyres and the tyres to work well has been a bit of a weakness, but now things are starting to go in the right direction.

"I've been feeling strong all weekend so I knew this was possible, and I'm definitely really happy to put it together in Q3 and be on pole.

"With the team, the pressure, and with the battles from Red Bull, it's good to be ahead."

Mercedes continued its Portuguese qualifying tactic from last season by fitting medium tyres to both cars for the final runs of the session but this time around neither drivers were able to improve on their opening laps.

"The whole weekend has been a so-so feeling with the soft tyres and it has been feeling better with the mediums," Bottas explained.

"Last year, we put the medium tyres on at the end of qualifying and it worked. We tried it again but maybe the wind picked up on the last run and I couldn't get the temperature in.

"I am glad we still had a good result and tomorrow, starting with the medium tyres, it opens up opportunities so we can go as long as we want in the first stint. We need to focus on the race start and go from there."

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