Bottas happy with 'super close' battle for pole with Hamilton

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Valtteri Bottas claimed pole position for the 1,000th Formula 1 Grand Prix, but he did so by just 0.023s over his Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton.

"It's been a good weekend so far," Bottas told Martin Brundle after the end of the session, having already topped two of the three practice sessions in Shanghai.

"I was already really comfortable today in the practice," he continued. "In qualifying, honestly I struggled in Q3 to get the perfect lap in, but it was good enough.

Bottas beats Hamilton to Race 1000 pole in Shanghai

"The last lap was okay, like I said. Not completely how I wanted but luckily good enough for pole. The car has been really good this weekend."

It was perhaps a surprise that the closest threat to pole for Bottas proved to be Hamilton, who had been off the pace all weekend until it got to the latter stages of qualifying.

"Lewis managed to improve a lot during qualifying, and it was super close," acknowledged Bottas.

Hamilton admitted that it had been a struggle to get himself on an even footing with the Finn this weekend. "Big congratulations to Valtteri, he's been stellar all weekend," he acknowledged.

"I've been struggling and fighting the car all weekend,” he said after the session finished. "[But] I didn't give up, I kept pushing right until the end

"We've been chipping away at it. But I'm much, happier with it - it was eight tenths at one stage, the between us. To be as close as we are at the end is fantastic.

"It's an incredible result for the team," he added. "There's a little bit more time left on the table there, but that's cool - I'll try get it tomorrow.”

As for the prospects for the race itself, Hamilton remains keenly aware of the twin threat of the two Ferraris starting behind them on row two.

"They are particularly quick on the straights but it's evident this weekend that we've managed to pull some performance from the corners. Just great work from the guys back at the factory, analysing the [in-season] test [in Bahrain] and the last two races.

"This is really, really positive for us. Really happy."

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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.