Lewis Hamilton had to cede pole to team mate Valtteri Bottas in Bahrain after a great performance by the Finn, but the triple World Champion was quick to praise his Mercedes teammate.
Hamilton was actually fastest on the first runs, but when Bottas went quicker, he couldn’t quite match him.
“A big congratulations to Valtteri,” said Hamilton. “He’s been working so hard, he’s gelled so well with the team and today he was just quicker. He did the better job, so hats off to him.
“The first lap felt great and I looked up and the time was so close, and I thought ‘wow, that was a good lap, he did a great job.’ But I was losing quite a bit of time through the first sector, that was generally my weaker point, which is actually unusual. Usually it’s a stronger point for me.
“I’ll work on it for tomorrow, but Valtteri found some great pace, particularly through the first sector, the second and third ended up being quite good, but just overall a little bit down. But a great battle and that’s how close I think qualifying should always be. It forces us all to be more on the limit. I’m generally happy with the job I did and it’s great for the team to be one-two.”
Ferrari had set the pace on Friday, and Hamilton anticipates a close fight with Sebastian Vettel on Sunday.
“Obviously today we had a bit of a margin to the Ferraris, but generally in race trim they seem to be a bit quicker, but I guess we’ll see tomorrow. Perhaps it will level out a little bit more. It’s definitely going to be a close battle.
“I don’t necessarily know how good their long runs were, but I heard that they were quite quick, the Ferraris, so it’s definitely going to be close, all of us, and looking after the tires is definitely very difficult. Whether it’s a one or two stop will be interesting to see. Temperatures, all those different things. Hopefully we’ll have a great battle tomorrow.”
What’s racing this weekend?
