{"id":66186,"date":"2021-05-01T21:37:52","date_gmt":"2021-05-01T21:37:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=66186"},"modified":"2021-05-01T23:02:11","modified_gmt":"2021-05-01T23:02:11","slug":"ricciardo-cops-worst-nightmare-in-f1-qualifying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=66186","title":{"rendered":"Ricciardo cops 'worst nightmare' in F1 qualifying"},"content":{"rendered":"

Valtteri Bottas took pole position for the Portuguese Grand Prix<\/a> and denied Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton a record-extending 100th Formula One pole on Saturday, while Daniel Ricciardo qualified a "grim" 16th for McLaren.<\/p>\n

Bottas clinched the 17th of his career and a much-needed one after he crashed in the last race and scored no points.<\/p>\n

"It's a good feeling to be on pole, it's been quite a while," Bottas said. "I've worked very hard this week."<\/p>\n

He was 0.007 seconds ahead of Hamilton and 0.34 ahead of Red Bull's Max Verstappen, making him the third different pole-sitter in three races. Hamilton and Verstappen earned the others.<\/p>\n

"It definitely puts a smile on my face. I've been strong all weekend and it makes me really happy to put it all together," Bottas said. "Qualifying hasn't been my strong point in the first two races."<\/p>\n

Hamilton is aiming for his 97th win on Sunday, while Bottas goes for his 17th victory, and Verstappen his 12th.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ricciardo had his worst qualifying result since the 2019 Japanese Grand Prix, delivering little of the pace that was suggested in practice. McLaren teammate Lando Norris qualified seventh.<\/p>\n

"Big, big disappointment," Ricciardo said. "I'm still in a little bit of shock actually, just how the session went. To be out in Q1, it's really like your worst nightmare as a driver.<\/p>\n

"The medium [tyre] at the beginning of the run was OK, but we just didn't really get a clean lap. And then the soft [tyre], it was just messy, messy.<\/p>\n

"Already into turn one, I didn't feel I was helped with some traffic. And then the end of the lap, I was just trying to hang on to the rear of the car, I just didn't really get going from really the start of the lap.<\/p>\n

"Then I was trying to probably play catch-up at the end, which just meant a lot of mistakes. Yeah, not a good one."<\/p>\n

Ricciardo out-qualified Norris in Bahrain and Italy, yet trailed the younger British driver in both races, finishing seventh and sixth-placed finishes respectively. Qualifying at Portimao was a hammer blow to his aim of outperforming his internal rival, who is more used to the car.<\/p>\n

"Why we struggled or why it was difficult to put a lap together it's not so clear at the moment," Ricciardo said.<\/p>\n

"I think there's a few things for sure and there's some 10ths left on the table.<\/p>\n

"But it was tricky. So yeah, 16th is grim. It's not a result I feel good about at all.<\/p>\n

"I'm still trying to get out of, let's say, a little bit of an old style. So I'm still quite conscious about how I approach every corner<\/p>\n

"I felt like yesterday (in practice) I'd made a good step towards that, and I certainly felt comfortable yesterday or more comfortable than a couple weeks ago. So that's why to be standing here now, it's pretty dark."<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Verstappen looked in contention to clinch a fifth career pole after impressively topping the third and final practice earlier Saturday, but he made a small mistake in the last part of qualifying \u2014 known as Q3 \u2014 when he went outside of the track limits and failed to set a time. That meant his lap time was deleted and gave him only one more shot at the two Mercedes cars.<\/p>\n

"It was a really difficult session to get grip, the car just snapped away from me and went wide," Verstappen said. "It's been really hit and miss anyway, the whole weekend. The layout of the track is amazing but the grip is not good."<\/p>\n

Hamilton also said the track, which was relaid with new tarmac for last year's race, was very awkward to negotiate.<\/p>\n

"It was a difficult session for everyone, it's windy here and quite slippery," the British veteran said. "Valtteri did a great job."<\/p>\n

As late afternoon temperatures cooled in Portugal's Algarve region, it was a bad qualifying run for Ricciardo, while Red Bull's Sergio Perez went off track at turn four and into gravel but had already done enough to get into Q2.<\/p>\n

Hamilton led Q2 from Bottas and McLaren's Lando Norris, while two-time F1 champion Fernando Alonso was among the five to go out.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Verstappen posted the fastest time in the third and final practice, followed by Hamilton, Bottas, and Perez.<\/p>\n

Mercedes topped the first two practices on Friday, through Bottas and then Hamilton.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Portugal GP is the third race of the season.<\/p>\n

Hamilton leads the championship by one point from Verstappen. Hamilton's lead is courtesy of him taking a bonus point for the fastest lap at an incident-packed Emilia-Romagna GP, which Verstappen won. Hamilton won the season-opener in Bahrain.<\/p>\n

Bottas needs to find form after a poor race two weeks ago at Imola, where he was involved in a crash with Williams driver George Russell after an overtaking move went wrong. Bottas dropped to fifth place in the standings behind Ferrari's Charles Leclerc in what could be his final season with Mercedes.<\/p>\n

"For the mental process, I just put those mistakes to one side," Bottas said.<\/p>\n

F1 PORTUGUESE GP QUALIFYING RESULTS<\/strong><\/h2>\n

1. Valtteri Bottas, Finland, Mercedes, 1 minute, 18.348 seconds.<\/p>\n

2. Lewis Hamilton, Great Britain, Mercedes, 1:18.355.<\/p>\n

3. Max Verstappen, Netherlands, Red Bull Racing, 1:18.746.<\/p>\n

4. Sergio Perez, Mexico, Red Bull Racing, 1:18.890.<\/p>\n

5. Carlos Sainz Jr, Spain, Ferrari, 1:19.039.<\/p>\n

6. Esteban Ocon, France, Alpine, 1:19.042.<\/p>\n

7. Lando Norris, Great Britain, McLaren, 1:19.116.<\/p>\n

8. Charles Leclerc, Monaco, Ferrari, 1:19.306.<\/p>\n

9. Pierre Gasly, France, Alphatauri, 1:19.475.<\/p>\n

10. Sebastian Vettel, Germany, Aston Martin, 1:19.659.<\/p>\n

Eliminated after second session<\/strong><\/p>\n

11. George Russell, Great Britain, Williams, 1:19.109.<\/p>\n

12. Antonio Giovinazzi, Italy, Alfa Romeo Racing, 1:19.216.<\/p>\n

13. Fernando Alonso, Spain, Alpine, 1:19.456.<\/p>\n

14. Yuki Tsunoda, Japan, Alphatauri, 1:19.463.<\/p>\n

15. Kimi Raikkonen, Finland, Alfa Romeo Racing, 1:19.812.<\/p>\n

Eliminated after first session<\/strong><\/p>\n

16. Daniel Ricciardo, Australia, McLaren, 1:19.839.<\/p>\n

17. Lance Stroll, Canada, Aston Martin, 1:19.913.<\/p>\n

18. Nicholas Latifi, Canada, Williams, 1:20.285.<\/p>\n

19. Mick Schumacher, Germany, Haas F1 Team, 1:20.452.<\/p>\n

20. Nikita Mazepin, Russia, Haas F1 Team, 1:20.912.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Valtteri Bottas took pole position for the Portuguese Grand Prix and denied Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton a record-extending 100th Formula One pole on Saturday, while […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66186"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66186"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66188,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66186\/revisions\/66188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}