Mercedes

Third place in qualifying 'not ideal' for Bottas

Valtteri Bottas got his Mercedes career off to a good start after taking third place on the grid for the Australian Grand Prix.

The Finn's previous best grid position at Albert Park Circuit had been 15th place, making this an auspicious start to his season.

Not that you'd notice. He certainly didn't sound all that thrilled by the achievement when talking with the media afterwards.

"Well, you know, third position is not ideal. I think in general I'm not happy with the result," he sighed.

"Myself, I didn't quite get any really perfect laps in, so not that satisfied.

"But what I am really happy about - I'm proud about, like Lewis said - is what the team have done again have done with this car."

Bottas only joined the team from Williams in January. He was a late replacement for Nico Rosberg, who shocked the world of motorsport with his retirement five days after winning the 2016 title.

Hamilton takes pole for the 2017 Australian Grand Prix

That means the new 2017 Mercedes car was developed with a different driver than Bottas in mind. Not that it seems to have been any great setback in pre-season testing and now the race weekend.

"I only saw a very small part of the preparation with the new car in the new era of Formula 1. It's really nice to see that all the work has paid off.

"We're fighting at the very front. It seems to be very close this year, at least here."

Bottas was optimistic that Mercedes would be able to successfully see off its rivals on Sunday.

"Tomorrow is the day that matters. It seems like in the race starts we've been quite strong. Hopefully we can keep that form like we've had it in practice and have a nice and clean race. And get some points!"

GALLERY: all the pics from Saturday's action

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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.