Runaway pole in Spain 'an adrenaline rush' for Bottas

Valtteri Bottas (FIN) Mercedes AMG F1 W10.

Valtteri Bottas was delighted to secure his third pole position in a row in 2019 after comprehensively out-performing his Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton in qualifying for the 2019 Spanish Grand Prix.

"I really enjoyed that, enjoyed the adrenaline rush you get from driving those laps," he said immediately after the session. "I'm very pleased."

Bottas set a new track record for the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Q3, clocking in at 1:15.406s - a whopping 0.634s over Hamilton.

Bottas puts a stop to Hamilton's run of poles in Barcelona

"It feels obviously really good. Quite a big margin as well. All I can say is that in qualifying I was really focussing on myself, in getting those corners right that I felt I could still improve. So run-by-run I always knew next time I could improve here and how to do it.

“I’m surprised by the big gap over Lewis," he admitted. "It’s bigger than I would have expected. I don’t know how Lewis’ lap was, but this time, everything went right on my lap."

Bottas had been the quickest man on track on Friday, but his perfect record was spoiled after he spun out during final practice on Saturday morning. Fortunately the mishap didn't put him off his stride when it came to qualifying.

"Practice 3 was difficult obviously with the spin, so I just forgot that and moved on," he said. "By the time [we got to] Q3, it was getting better and better.

"I managed to get everything together and it's such a nice feeling when you get it right and see the laptime.

"It was a really enjoyable, nice lap," he continued. The car was behaving and doing what I asked of it. As a team, we’ve done an incredible job, and I’m proud of the recovery from a difficult FP3."

Bottas comes into the weekend with the lead of the drivers championship, by a single point over Hamilton. Another victory on Sunday would extend him a significant advantage in the championship standings.

"It's started well this season," he acknowledged. "The way I've hoped for. I feel better and better in the car.

"I’m not a big fan of numbers," Bottas insisted if he was starting to think in terms of the title battle. "At at this point of the season there’s no point in thinking too much about numbers.

"Right now, it’s just all about the moment," he added. "I'm looking forward to tomorrow."

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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.