Bottas on top: 'Ideal way to start a weekend on new track'

©Mercedes

While his Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton was fretting about a lack of speed in Friday's practice sessions for the Qatar Grand Prix, Valtteri Bottas couldn't have been happier about the way things had gone.

The Finn ended the day with the fastest lap at Losail International Circuit, clocking in at 1:23.148s which was two tenths quicker than AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly and the rest of the field.

Bottas acknowledged that he was delighted by the outcome.

Read also: Bottas quickest from Gasly in Qatar twilight session

"I would say that’s an ideal way to start a weekend on a new track," he said after the end of the twilight session.

"Today started nicely with the set-ups," he continued. "The balance was already pretty good in the first runs, [so] only minor tweaks [needed] to be done for FP2.

"The team did a really good job on the estimation of the set-up, and it’s not far off the sweet spot," he added.

“Obviously there’s always work to do, even driving-wise," he admitted. "In two sessions you cannot find all the speed that is available, so for sure we’ll keep on working.”

Bottas certainly isn't taking pole position in tomorrow's qualifying session for granted at this early stage in proceedings.

"It's hard to make conclusions from today," he said. "But at least, like I said, the feeling was okay and that's promising for the rest of the weekend.

"It was good practice, but it is [just] practice. We tried to learn as much as we could."

Bottas was one of a number of drivers to have some of his lap times deleted for track limits, and he suggested that this was going to be a major factor this weekend.

"Even in some of my fastest laps, I had confusion. I didn't know what was allowed and what wasn't," he said. "I'm sure it's gonna be a talking point in the drivers' meeting today

"It's just the nature of the track really and that's creating issues."

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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.