Valtteri Bottas was “proud” of Mercedes’ progress despite losing out on a chance of pole due to Charles Leclerc’s red flag.
The Finn’s mechanics were seen working on his car right up until the final moments before qualifying, and the changes seemed to pay off as Bottas was involved in the battle for P1.
Unfortunately for Valtteri, he was unable to show the true potential of his W12 as he, along with the others in Q3, had to abort their final laps when polesitter Leclerc crashed at the Swimming Pool chicane.
“It is disappointing that I didn’t get my last run with the red flag,” Bottas said. “But that’s how it is sometimes.
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“I kind of left everything out there for the last run. The first run wasn’t really up at all, but the second run with the prep lap that we did was feeling quite good
“I was quite a bit up on my lap time, so I’m gutted.”
Bottas’ pace was in stark contrast to the struggles of teammate Lewis Hamilton, who suffered his worst qualifying result since 2018 in seventh.
And the Finn conceded the Mercedes hasn’t been as comfortable on the streets of Monaco as their rivals.
“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 conceded.
“[It’s a] 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 feeling much better than since the practice we did this morning.
“We should have had a shot at pole on the last run, so we try everything we can in the race tomorrow.”
