Bottas pips Hamilton for 17th career pole

Portimao, 1 May 2021: Valtteri Bottas made Lewis Hamilton wait for his 100th pole position as he pipped his Mercedes team mate by the slimmest of margins to take his 17th career pole position for the Portuguese Grand Prix, the third round of the Formula 1 World Championship on Saturday.

The Finn set the pace on soft tyres after the first run, pipping Hamilton by 0.007s, with Mercedes opting to send both cars out on the mediums, which they seemed to be quicker on, for the second runs.

However, the wind had picked up for the second runs, and both failed to improve, meaning Bottas will be third different pole sitter in as many races this season, as Mercedes locked out ther 71st front row with ease.

Max Verstappen, who won from the third on the grid last time out, ended up third quickest – having been forced onto the back foot when his best lap was deleted for track limits infringements. Source: F1.com

Valtteri Bottas
We worked hard to figure out the issues I was experiencing in qualifying, we put things right and this is the result – it’s more like how it should be, so I’m happy. In the first two races, I knew the speed was there but my main issue was tyre warm-up. We’ve put a lot of focus on that, we learned some lessons and I always knew our hard work would pay off. The key was to stay calm, execute the plan and focus on the small details, particularly on the out-laps.
 
We’ve been stronger than expected which is a positive surprise but it’s only qualifying, I’m already thinking about tomorrow. We know the Red Bulls have a strong race car and we are expecting an epic battle.
 
Lewis Hamilton
Not that enjoyable of a session because I couldn’t get that many good laps in but I’m not too frustrated, I only did one good lap and that was in Q2. Of course I’d have loved to put more good laps together but it was tricky out there. It’s a slippery track, the tyres are hard so you need to do multiple laps to put temperature into them and it’s quite a peaky balance – it works for a second and then falls away very quickly, it’s on a knife-edge.
 
It wasn’t meant to be but Valtteri did a great job today and I’m just focused on the race. Now is the time to understand strategy for tomorrow and work out where the opportunities lie. It’s not an easy track to follow but we shall we see – I hope we have good enough pace to fight for the win, tomorrow we’ll go all in.
 
Toto Wolff
Qualifying was always our weakness in the first two races and now we’re back at the front. We have seen these kinds of performances from Valtteri in the past and today was a mega day for him. But I have no doubt, like I’ve always said, he can be right up there. Tomorrow we have two Mercedes with two Red Bulls just behind, good ingredients for a nice race!
 
Andrew Shovlin
Congratulations to Valtteri on his 17th career pole position; he’s looked solid all weekend in challenging conditions so it’s a very well-deserved result. It’s also a fine result for the team to be starting with both cars on the front row – the 75th front row of the modern era for Mercedes F1.
 
It was a fairly difficult session; it wasn’t clear whether the medium or soft would ultimately be the faster tyre and we also had to understand whether a preparation lap was better than going straight for lap one. By final qualifying, no one had come close to matching Lewis’s time on medium from Q2 so we decided to hedge our bets by running both compounds. As it happened, the track got much slower in the final minutes so tyre choice wasn’t important but we were just grateful that we’d done enough to secure the front row. We had wanted both cars on the medium tyre to start the race and on balance, we’re happy to have Red Bull on the same start-tyre given that we have track position. Our main concern will be the warm-up on that compound, the soft runners on the third row and behind will have a grip advantage that could last a lap or two so that may might things tricky.

2021 FIA Formula 1 Portuguese Grand Prix – Qualifying
1 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1:18.348  8 213.799
2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:18.355 0.007 8 213.780
3 Max Verstappen Red Bull/Honda 1:18.746 0.508 6 212.719
4 Sergio Pérez Red Bull/Honda 1:18.890 0.542 7 212.331
5 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 1:19.039 0.691 8 211.930
6 Esteban Ocon Alpine/Renault 1:19.042 0.694 6 211.922
7 Lando Norris McLaren/Mercedes 1:19.116 0.768 7 211.724
8 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:19.306 0.958 8 211.217
9 Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri/Honda 1:19.475 1.127 8 210.768
10 Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin/Mercedes 1:19.659 1.311 6 210.281
10 Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri/Honda 1:19.052 1.084 8 211.895
11 George Russell Williams/Mercedes 1:19.109 1.141 7 211.743
12 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo/Ferrari 1:19.216 1.248 10 211.457
13 Fernando Alonso Alpine/Renault 1:19.456 1.488 6 210.818
14 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri/Honda 1:19.463 1.495 8 210.799
15 Kimi Räikkönen Alfa Romeo/Ferrari 1:19.812 1.844 9 209.878
16 Daniel Ricciardo McLaren/Mercedes 1:19.839 1.117 11 209.807
17 Lance Stroll Aston Martin/Mercedes 1:19.913 1.191 10 209.612
18 Nicholas Latifi Williams/Mercedes 1:20.285 1.563 9 208.641
19 Mick Schumacher Haas/Ferrari 1:20.452 1.730 11 208.208
20 Nikita Mazepin Haas/Ferrari 1:20.912 2.190 11 207.024