Valtteri Bottas doubts he would have been able to take pole position despite coming close to doing so on his final run in qualifying.
The Williams driver had gone quickest of all through the first two sectors but made a mistake in the final two corners which left him third on the grid behind the Mercedes drivers.
“It’s not nice to make a mistake but I think in the end today it maybe cost one place maximum,” said Bottas.
“I didn’t know at that time it was close to the pole,” he explained. “I only knew how it was compared to my best lap, which was the previous lap, which was not bad.”
Bottas explained he was running out of grip towards the end of his run. “Maybe looking back I took maybe a bit too much out of the tyres in the beginning of the lap and the last sector became a bit more tricky.”
“As I was gaining time compared to my best, towards the end it became a bit more difficult in the last few corners and then I risked it a bit too much in the last two corners.
“Went a little bit wide and here when you go off-line it’s really slippery, like everyone saw. And that was it.”
2014 Russian Grand Prix
Image © Williams/LAT
Ashwin (@redbullf1)
11th October 2014, 14:56
I like how in the post qualifying interview Rosberg and Hamilton were looking at Bottas for what he had to say about his final lap. They were looking at him like “there’s God right there” haha .
And then when Bottas spoke he said “no I just lost one place due to my mistake” that made Rosberg look a little disappointed. It was like Bottas said ” yeah I could have beat Rosberg but not Hamilton he was too fast.
Patrickl (@patrickl)
11th October 2014, 15:07
I guess Bottas had that scenario in mind already going into qualifying though. Bottas was very close to Rosberg in FP3 and it looked like he could get in between the two.
George (@george)
11th October 2014, 16:09
Yeah it seemed like he knew it was going to be a long shot and he had to push 100% in the last sector, then he just got in too hot in the penultimate corner and overheated his rears.
Oli (@dh1996)
11th October 2014, 16:27
Had him on pole in the predictions. So close.
Tomorrow …