Bottas: Mercedes has made 'step forward' this weekend

Valtteri Bottas was feeling upbeat on Friday after a promising day of free practice for the Austrian Grand Prix.

Bottas was third fastest in both the morning and afternoon sessions at the Red Bull Ring. He ended the day just over two tenths the pace of his team mate Lewis Hamilton.

"A solid start to the weekend," he confirmed after a busy time the office. "The car is clearly quick here.

"The balance of the car feels good and we'll fine tune the setup some more tonight to be ready for qualifying."

"Aerodynamically we've made another step forward from Baku, which is encouraging," he added.

"It was great to see that the upgrades the team worked so hard to deliver for this weekend worked straight out of the box."

It wasn't quite plain sailing for Bottas, however. The Finn went for a couple of spins during the day's track activity as he tested the outer limits of grip and handling in Spielberg. But he put that experience down as a good thing.

"This track punishes you if you make a mistake, and I tested those limits," he agreed. "But that's something I can learn from and build upon for the rest of the weekend."

• Hamilton stays in charge in second practice

Bottas certainly needs to find a way to get bit more out of the W08 if he's to pip Sebastian Vettel in qualifying and help Hamilton achieve a second consecutive Mercedes 1-2 lock-out on the starting grid for Sunday's race.

"Ferrari are looking strong here," he admitted. "We're expecting another interesting weekend ahead."

Race day in Baku was certainly made interesting by the start of the race which saw Bottas collide with his compatriot Kimi Raikkonen at the start. Bottas initially went a lap down but subsequently recovered to take second place at the line.

“We are always starting very close to each other," said Bottas. "It makes a big chance for us to collide. It is just unlucky it is me and Kimi who clash.

"I’m not going to change," he insisted.

"What I did in Baku I wouldn’t change because for me there was no option for me to back off in that situation. I ran over the kerb but I ran off more than I expected. I couldn’t keep the line anymore and that is why I hit him."

Raikkonen has been critical of Bottas' driving in Baku, but has said he has no plans to bring up the topic in today's drivers meeting.

"No, not interested in talking about it," said Raikkonen. "It's a bigger story because we're Finns. If one was a Finn and the other wasn't, it wouldn't be made such a big thing out of it.

"We don't know each other very well, it's pretty much the same as with the other drivers, even if we're Finns."

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