Bottas 'could have got more' out of final Canada Q3 lap
Valtteri Bottas made no secret of his disappointed after Formula 1 qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix on Saturday after struggling to hook up a lap in Q3.
Bottas continued his impressive run of form at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve by qualifying third for Mercedes, albeit over six-tenths of a second back from team-mate Lewis Hamilton on pole.
"It was close here, as I expected," Bottas said. "Lewis had a mega lap today. For me, on the second run in Q3 I tried to go faster, I went too deep into the hairpin so I could have got a bit more out of it.
"I was really trying hard, it was a tricky day for me and I wasn't happy at all with the car in FP3. It got a lot better for qualifying, it felt good in Q1 and Q2.
"But in Q3 when it came to go to getting those last hundreds and thousands of a second, when I was pushing harder, the car became more unstable again, not so easy to predict, so I struggled more with the car today than Lewis did. I couldn't put a proper lap together."
Hamilton and Bottas were split by Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel, who is chasing a fourth win of the season on Sunday as he bids to extend his championship lead.
Bottas has faith in Mercedes' long run pace, although he is anticipating another close fight with Ferrari in the race.
"The long runs seemed OK, but I think it will be close with Ferrari," Bottas said. "I felt good in the car in the long runs, so let's see what happens tomorrow."
