Valtteri Bottas labelled his pole position lap at Formula 1’s Mexico City Grand Prix as one of the best of his career.
Mercedes sprung a surprise during qualifying at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez as Bottas claimed top spot, in front of team-mate Lewis Hamilton, ahead of the Red Bull drivers.
It marked Bottas’ third pole position of the season and the 19th of his career.
“It feels like it was one of the good laps,” he said. “It’s hard to remember exactly what’s the best, but it’s up there, definitively, and I really enjoyed it.
“I definitively surprised myself and our performance as a team.
“We seemed to be a bit off, especially on a single lap, against Red Bull.
“I would say the performance in Q3 was a bit of a surprise. It was a good lap, we managed to optimise the set-up since FP3 this morning, and everything with the tyre temperatures.
“Managed to get everything near perfection and that’s the result, so, rewarding.”
Explaining how he got it together in Q3, Bottas said: “It’s quite a tricky track to put a lap together, there’s many technical sections and corner combinations.
“Over the kerbs it’s so easy to lose five hundreds or even a tenth, so I think getting a nice, clean lap together, getting the tyre temperatures in the optimal window was the big thing today.
“Balance wise also in qualifying, it was definitively the best car I’ve had this weekend.”
