Bottas will ‘look in the mirror’ at mistakes after “messy” Q3

Valtteri Bottas says he will “look in the mirror” to assess exactly where his qualifying session for Formula 1’s Canadian Grand Prix went wrong.

Bottas looked right on the pace throughout the opening two segments of qualifying, but was left to rue a scruffy Q3 session that left him only sixth on the Montreal grid for Sunday’s race.

The Finn had to abort his first run after a spin coming out of Turn 2, before making more mistakes on his final lap. He ended up 0.861s off the pace of pole sitter Sebastian Vettel and was also outqualified by Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo and Red Bull driver Pierre Gasly.

“I’m not quite sure, just the first run was my mistake,” Bottas explained.

“I had a bit of a snap out of Turn 2 and actually ended up in a spin while I trying to minimise the time lost and just get going, so then I was on a bit the back foot for the last run.

“I was still feeling confident that I could still do it but I had messy laps with many lock-ups, just missing the apexes. I just need to have a look in the mirror at what went wrong.”

Despite his worst qualifying of the season, Bottas said he is not giving up on salvaging a strong result on Sunday.

“For sure you can overtake,” he added. “Let’s see if there’s any difference in the strategy but if there isn’t then it makes it more difficult.

“But there’s no point giving up on anything for tomorrow. This is racing, so even starting where I start I’m not going to give up.”