Mercedes might have missed out on pole position in qualifying today, but Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton are nonetheless still planning a fight back in the Hungarian Grand Prix itself on Sunday.
Red Bull's Max Verstappen set a new track record time with a 1:14.572s in the final top ten pole shoot-out round at the Hungaroring to take his first-ever F1 pole.
Bottas was just 0.018s behind and will start alongside Verstappen on the front row. Despite winning pole six times here, Hamilton had to settle for third place and was a tenth slower than his team mate at the end of the session.
"We really only started to get into the rhythm of it this morning," Bottas admitted afterwards, revealing that he'd been on the back foot ever since missing all of Friday's FP1 with a power unit issue.
"I've been chasing it a little bit pretty much all weekend after missing pretty much all of practice one," he said. "It was getting better and better in qualifying and I was pretty pleased with the time in the end.
"Very close with Max, they've been quick all weekend, but as always there's tomorrow.
"We're here to fight for the win," he told a large contingent of fans in the grandstand. "There's lots of support for that, that's going to make a difference!"
Despite clearly disappointed to miss out on the front row this weekend, Hamilton was similarly determined to bounce back come tomorrow's race.
"Naturally, you're always targeting first, but Max did a great job and so did Valtteri," he told Sky Sport F1's Paul di Resta.
"It kind of got away from me a little bit once we got into qualifying but I'm still in a good position to fight for the win, so going to be pushing hard tomorrow," he insisted.
"I'm always out for a fight," he added. "There's a long way down to turn 1 so it should be interesting.
"It's not the easiest place to overtake but strategy will come into it tomorrow, so hopefully we can give them a run for their money!"
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