'Pumped' Hamilton leaves Bottas disappointed in qualifying

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An astonishing all-or-nothing final lap from Lewis Hamilton left the three-time world champion 'pumped' and delighted with the outcome.

A red flag had left drivers with little time to make their final qualifying laps in Q3 on Saturday. Hamilton was in second behind his Mercedes team mate Valtteri Bottas as the cars streamed out of pit lane for the final time.

Bottas managed to go even faster with his final run - but then Hamilton pulled off the best lap of anyone so far this weekend with a time of 1:40.593s. That was good enough for pole by almost half a second.

"That was one of the most exciting laps I've had all year," Hamilton said afterwards. "So pumped with that. That's how qualifying should be.

"The first lap I easily had the time, I just make a mistake in the last corner," he explained.

He had intended to make another run at pole right then and there. However the red flag for Daniel Ricciardo came out before he could do so, which heightened the stress and tension of the situation.

The drivers had just 3.33s to scramble out of pit lane, warm their tyres and start their flying lap. It was a knife-edge situation for everyone.

"It was a lot of pressure," Hamilton agreed. "We've been struggling to get temperature in these tyres, we don't know if it's a one-lap tyre

"It was all or nothing. But the lap just got better and better throughout and I saw Valtteri just ahead, I knew he was doing a good lap.

Hamilton beats Bottas to pole position in Baku

"I remember just coming down from the last corner, I was like, 'Please be enough'. I'm ecstatic, I'm so happy.

"I'm just thankful that I was able to pull a lap together," he added. "The team did a great job to make our cars and put us out at the right times, so a big thank you to them."

While a Mercedes 1-2 in qualifying does little to assure success on Sunday, Hamilton was delighted to be starting at the front.

"Tomorrow's going to be a long hard race but we're in the best position to start."

Naturally Bottas was less delighted with the outcome of the final pole position shoot-out.

"Disappointing, obviously," he said. "I was going for the pole, just the lap in the end wasn't quite that perfect.

"I was struggling a lot with the front left temperature, but Lewis had a good lap at that point and I didn't.

"Disappointing, but second place is not bad," he added."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.