Bottas “gutted” to miss out on Monaco F1 pole shot due to red flag

Bottas was third after the first runs in Q3, just under 0.3s off Leclerc’s provisional pole benchmark.

The Finn was improving on his final effort in qualifying and looked like he could beat Leclerc's time.

The Ferrari driver's shunt in the final sector of the lap cut qualifying short prematurely, meaning the likes of Bottas couldn’t improve and thus ensured Leclerc remained at the top of the timesheets.

“For me it’s disappointing I didn’t get my last run because of the red flag but that’s how it is sometimes,” Bottas said. “I kind of left everything out there for the last run. The first run wasn’t really enough for pole, but on the second lap, with the preparation lap I did, was feeling quite good, I was quite a bit down on the lap time, so I’m gutted.”

Talking about his last run of Q3 specifically, Bottas explained: I think I was in Turn 6 or 7, and by then I was one and a half tenth up, but if and if… That’s what it is…”

While Bottas was disappointed to miss out on his first career pole in Monaco, he comfortably had the upper hand over Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton, who could only manage seventh.

Bottas praised the progress he and the team had made since Thursday practice.

“We’ve seen since the practice on Thursday and still this morning that our relative performance to Red Bull and also Ferrari is not quite as it has been in the recent races,” Bottas added. 

“Unique track, you need different characteristics from the car, but what I’m proud of is the progress we managed to make. By the time of qualifying the car was felling much better than since the practice we did this morning.

“I was much more comfortable with the car and actually I really felt there was a shot for pole position, which was completely out of reach in the practice. That’s why it’s disappointing at the end, with the red flag, because I felt there was a good lap on the way.”