Valtteri Bottas accepted teammate Lewis Hamilton did “ultimately a better job” after clinching pole for the Hungarian Grand Prix.
In Q3, it appeared as if the world champion had left the Finn with too much to do after taking P1 by three-tenths in his first run.
Bottas though hit back, going a tenth faster than his fellow Mercedes’ initial benchmark but Hamilton still had space to find two more tenths to secure the 90th pole of his Formula 1 career.
“Yeah, for sure,” he said on whether the small gap left him frustrated. “I saw in practice that it was going to be a close battle between us at least in qualifying, and Practice 3 didn’t feel too bad.
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“At the beginning of the qualifying until the very end of Q3, I was struggling a bit in the first sector mainly, Turn 1 braking wasn’t so comfortable there, so I was losing a bit of time.
“Turn 2, [I] also struggled a bit with the snappiness of the rear end of the car, but I think when the track improved, the car was starting to come together.
“At the end, I have to say the lap was pretty good actually. I thought I might have a chance really with that lap, but Lewis was just a tenth quicker.
“He did ultimately a better job today in qualifying, that’s why he is on pole.”
Mercedes were in a class of their own as the only team able to lap in the 1m13s and it would appear to be a straight fight between Bottas and Hamilton for the win on Sunday.
“It’s pretty strong from the small amount of data that we managed to gather in practice one,” Valtteri said on their race pace.
“Of course we missed a lot of the running in practice two, so some question marks there, but overall the package we have should be good in the race as well.”