It will not bother the Finn one jot but it could not be ignored that he did so in an underwhelming qualifying session defined by the lack of grip at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve. Bottas beat his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton into second place, denying the world champion his 100th pole by seven-thousandths of a second, with Max Verstappen taking third for Red Bull. “But it is extremely low grip, which makes it more tricky and less enjoyable than if it had grippy Tarmac.”. “I don’t even want to think about Turkey,” said Verstappen and Hamilton concurred. “I don’t understand what they do to make it worse, Turkey used to have good grip and the last time we went there we had none,” he said. He has to challenge now if he is to make it a three-way title fight with Verstappen and Hamilton.

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