Valtteri Bottas came up short on pole position in Canada by just 0.093s to Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel and believes he got everything out of the car, but had Mercedes introduced its upgraded engine this weekend, Bottas believes pole might have been possible, or at least closer.
Mercedes opted to delay its upgrade due to a "quality issue", meanwhile rivals Ferrari, Renault and Honda all brought new specs this weekend.
Hamilton admitted to some concerns on Friday that it could cost them this weekend and Bottas suspects pole might have been in reach with it.
"Qualifying wise, obviously it was close with Ferrari, it’s always annoying when it’s so close and you’re not ahead. Anyway, I’m stating from the front row, it’s good for the race and I’m happy.
"Obviously everything with the new engines, the numbers we have, they are just theory, but there would have been gains and I think it would have been a closer fight for pole position with that engine. We’ll get it later, anyway, so it’s all good."
Bottas doesn't feel as though he left anything on the table though: "I felt I got almost everything out of the car on the first run. But I knew that, yes, there were still places where I could improve, but I had some understeer on the second run, I don’t know for what reason, but I don’t think we missed any positions in the second run.
"Today was the first time we used the Hypersofts and we made progress throughout the runs, all the way preparing to do Q3 with it. Like Ferrari we’re starting the race with the Ultrasoft tyres, so let’s see what we can do with them."
