Valtteri Bottas blamed an unstable rear end on his Mercedes, after slumping to P8 in qualifying for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

The Finn's best time of the session actually came in Q1, which would have put him fourth on the grid. Instead, he now faces a tricky comeback through a very competitive field of cars on a circuit at Imola which is known to be very tough to overtake on.

“Not what I was aiming for today, especially with how everything was feeling at the start of qualifying,” he told Formula1.com.

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“Q3, first run I went into Tamburello and I had a really sudden snap from the rear end and it really continued through Sector 1 and I lost a lot of time. And actually, it was the same thing in run two.

“It was never there - I couldn’t trust the rear end of the car, and it was something that I didn’t feel in the whole qualifying before that. So I don’t know what happened, we need to investigate, but for sure it’s disappointing.”

Rear instability was something Mercedes had been struggling with in the windy conditions in Bahrain at the opening race of the season,

But, as Bottas explained: “It was something different, it was more on corner entry which is something that’s never happened before, so I need to look, first of all that everything is right with the car. But obviously not ideal.”

His poor qualifying result also now leaves teammate Lewis Hamilton exposed to both Red Bulls on race day, as the top three was covered by just 0.087s.

But Bottas was pleased to see the Mercedes seemingly back on level terms with the RB16B after the four-tenth gap to Max Verstappen on Saturday in Bahrain.

“It’s proof that the performance differences between teams can really swing and this is clearly a better track for us, even though the result for me is not representing that,” said the 31-year-old.

“But Lewis made it on pole and I should have been up there as well. It’s good to see but it’s not only the track, it’s also all the hard work we have been doing.”