Sebastian Vettel was fastest in the second round of qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix, but he couldn't maintain that edge over the Mercedes drivers when it came to the final pole shoot-out.
Vettel admitted that he'd made a mistake on his first lap in the final top ten pole shoot-out, going wide at turn 4 and narrowly avoiding the gravel.
"I knew I needed to put a banker in to make sure I qualified in the proper position," he said afterwards. "I think there was a little bit left, but not enough to really pip Valtteri to pole.
"I think I had probably a tenth which I needed," he mused. "But it's tricky when you lose the rhythm, which I did in Q3 run one with I made the mistake I had in turn 4, so I needed to recover.
"But not enough," he admitted. "I don't think we were quick enough to put them under serious threat. It's the second time in a row now that we're a bit further back. We need to make sure we get it back.
"Well done to [Valtteri], he put two very good laps in," he added, before turning his focus onto Sunday's race. "I think we have a good chance from P3 tomorrow."
"For tomorrow I'm quite confident we should have good pace in the race."
Before then, Vettel will have to appear before the race stewards over an incident at the end of Q2 when he was slow on track and inadvertently impeded Renault's Carlos Sainz who was on a final flier.
"Obviously I wasn't meaning to block him or ruin his lap," he insisted. "I was looking in the mirror, I was passing him finishing my lap and then I wasn't told anything.
"I still checked my mirrors and couldn't see anything. And then after turn 1 I checked again and there was nothing to see.
"It's to do with where the mirrors are and they're more or less in the same place for all of it. When the rear wing is closed which it was because I had finished my lap and wasn't pushing any more, then it's impossible to see. It's also a bit uphill here, so you literally see nothing.
"The problem is that by then he was side-by-side so fair enough - I can only apologise. There was no intention, obviously. Normally I get told very well but on this occasion I wasn't.
"Fortunately it didn't make a difference for him," Vettel added, noting that Sainz also made it through to Q3 despite losing out on that final flier.
Although Sainz had been angry enough to gesticulate at the four-time world champion at the time, he was conciliatory afterwards.
"Obviously I'm preparing my lap," Sainz told Sky Sports F1, recalling the incident. "I was approaching turn 1 and I could see Sebastian going out of line.
"I say, 'Okay, let's see, let's see, let's see - he's hasn't been told that I'm coming'. I'm still going to push turn 1 because I still want to give it a go. But then at the exit of turn 1 I see he hasn't seen me and I just take avoiding action and go left."
That put the Renault off track resulting in damage to the front wing running over the kerbs.
"I don't want to put too much blame on Sebastian," he insisted. "It has happened to me before, that your engineer doesn't tell you that there is one car is just starting a lap and you simply don't look in the mirrors.
"I got a penalty for that before, but it's not always the fault of the driver," he said. "I've got a penalty before for this, I don't know how the stewards will react [this time].
"To be honest I'm not too bothered if Sebastian gets it, I will understand if he doesn't also because it's tough luck on him that he wasn't told I was coming," he said. "But it did cost me a front wing.
"I was angry at that moment because I thought it had cost my Q3 because it was my second run of Q2 and we were pushing flat out," he admitted.
"But thank God I had a good enough lap at the beginning of Q2 to go into Q3, so it's didn't affect my qualifying."
Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
