Sebastian Vettel has admitted the gap to the two Mercedes drivers in Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying was larger than he expected.
Valtteri Bottas took pole position at the Bahrain International Circuit, finishing qualifying just 0.023 seconds ahead of his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton.
Vettel was a slightly distant third, just under half a second behind the Mercedes front row lockout and a few tenths clear of Daniel Ricciardo’s Red Bull in fourth.
The four-time champion and Australian GP race winner was pleased with his performance and laps in Q3, but was disappointed with the gap to the frontrunners.
“Overall I was very happy with how qualifying went, with how the car felt,” he said. “We had some issues yesterday, nothing wrong but we tweaked the balance for today in the right direction.
“I was happy with how it turned out, Q2 I thought ‘OK this will be tight’, happy to go into Q3. I was happy with my first lap, crossed the line, looked up and saw both of them were ahead.
“When I got the time I was a bit down, four tenths was a lot more than I expected given how good the lap felt.
“On the last run, I tried probably too hard everywhere, we had nothing to lose. I tried a bit harder but didn't work, was slightly slower.
“Being a tenth quick [wouldn't be] good enough but I tried. Hopefully we can do a bit more tomorrow.”
