Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas achieved his best qualifying result in Sepang on Saturday and as such will start this afternoon's Malaysian Grand Prix from fifth on the grid.
The Finnish driver ran the Brackley's based squad's latest aerodynamic upgrade package in FP3 and again during qualifying.
Unfortunately, he found it harder in this session but it's clear that tiny differences in set-up or tyre temperatures are making a big difference in lap time, and it didn't quite come together for in Q3.
As a result he was left feeling very disappointed with his performance.
“It's been a difficult weekend for us and we've been quite far behind at times. Compared to yesterday we made a step forward; today was a lot better, but still not good enough for me,” he said. “Lewis and I did end up with completely different cars in terms of aero package for the qualifying. It seemed to be working for him but not so much for me. “
‘Qualifying wasn't going too bad until the second session. But in qualy three, everyone else could improve quite a bit but I couldn't. We need to analyse everything, it is too early to say why I couldn't improve from Q2 to Q3. “
“I'm feeling very disappointed after the qualifying, but tomorrow is a new day. It is going to be a challenge for us; so far, our long run performance has not been great this weekend. But we will try and give it everything we can.”
