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Bottas 'confused' by lack of qualifying pace at Spa

Valtteri Bottas admitted that he'd expected to do better than third place in qualifying at Spa-Francorchamps on Saturday, ahead of this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix.

Bottas looked on course to claim second on the grid, which would have given Mercedes a front-row lock-out. Instead, Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel found extra pace at the end of Q3 to go three tenths quicker.

"Of course it would have been nice to be 1-2 for tomorrow, but still not a bad starting place," he said. "I was aiming for pole today, but to be honest Lewis has been doing an absolutely perfect job all week.

"Unfortunately, I didn't have the pace to fight for the pole today. I'm not sure about the reasons. I'm slightly confused as to why I haven't been able to get closer.

"For some reason I've been really struggling," he admitted. "Just haven't been able to get close enough. We'll need to investigate why. That's something to understand.

"We will need to look for a few more answers in the data. The balance in the car felt good, but I was lacking grip. I was particularly struggling in the high-speed corners of sector two.

Record-setting Hamilton dominates Spa qualifying

"But already my thoughts are for tomorrow," he said, insisting that a victory was by no means out of the question.

"Getting my first couple of wins this year, you just want more," he said. "That's going to be the mission for me tomorrow.

"I felt a lot more comfortable in the car with high fuel, so that's good for [the race]. Driving the 2017 car around Spa is mega - it's so quick, I've never experienced anything like it.

"Main thing as a team is we get a strong result. I'll do everything I can," he continued. "We are both starting in the top three, so as a team we will still try to achieve our target and that is a 1-2."

Bottas added that he was happy that the world championship spotlight was firmly fixed on Vettel and Lewis Hamilton, as it allowed him to fly under the radar.

"I don't mind if they are are being looked at more than me. I'll just keep doing my job, try and get better and better!"

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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.