© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
Valtteri Bottas says he is “pleased Lewis managed to get up to fifth place”, because it means “there will be plenty of opportunities for tomorrow”.
Valtteri Botta drove an amazing Brazilian Grand Prix Sprint Qualifying Race, as he managed to keep Max Verstappen behind even though his soft tyres were dropping off rapidly in the final laps.
“It was a good one, everything worked as we planned,” the Finn said.
“We opted to start with the soft tire because we knew that the best chance to get the lead today was at the start even if that would make the end of the race very tricky. But it worked perfectly.
“It wasn’t easy until the end, definitely the tires started to be pretty finished, so it was just avoiding mistakes and trying to keep the focus. Today was a good day.
“I’m also pleased Lewis managed to get up to fifth place, so that means there will be plenty of opportunities for tomorrow and we can still, even with the issues this weekend, have a great result tomorrow.”
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Bottas will now start the main race from pole, but he doesn’t want to reveal Mercedes strategy.
“I can’t tell you! Obviously starting from the pole, hoping to keep the lead and go from there.
“Tomorrow will be pretty open in terms of strategy for every team, we can start with whatever tire and we’re going to try and make the best plan we can.
“I think we actually used softs [on Friday] because we thought the mediums would be better for the Sprint.
“But then we realized the soft was a bit better than what we expected so we started to have a look at it, in terms of using them for the Sprint, even though we knew it wasn’t going to be easy.
“That means we have plenty of tires for tomorrow, so let’s see what we come up with,” Valtteri concluded.
