Mercedes will have one car at the front and one at the rear of the Brazilian grid on Sunday afternoon local time after Valtteri Bottas secured the third pole of his F1 career and his teammate, 4 times World Champion, put it into the wall on his first lap out of the pits in Q1.
As a result the Brit failed to set a time and will start from pitlane after the team makes necessary repairs to his Mercedes. It certainly topped off a bad weekend for the Brackley based squad, who revealed on Saturday morning that several of their mechanics were held up and robbed at gunpoint after leaving the circuit on Friday evening.
Temperatures were a lot cooler at Interlagos today with rain falling in the final Q3 sessions, however it wasn't heavy enough to really affect the cars performance, as Bottas proved when he took pole from Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel in the dying seconds of the session.
“As expected, we saw much cooler temperatures today and intermittent rain, which changed both the way the car was working and the tyre operating window compared to yesterday,” explained mercedes' Andrew Shovlin. “We had made small set-up changes in anticipation of this, while remaining mindful that tomorrow is forecast to be much warmer, and enjoyed a solid practice session this morning when both drivers were reasonably happy with the car - but it was also clear that we would be in a very close fight with Ferrari. “
“Qualifying got off to a bad start with Lewis' accident at Turn 6 and this left us with just one car to focus on. Valtteri rose admirably to the challenge and did a great job. He improved on every run and put in a fantastic final lap, in tricky conditions with some light rain hanging around, and deservedly added another pole position to his growing collection. Tomorrow, we are expecting Ferrari and Red Bull to be very close to us on race pace. Interlagos always serves up an exciting Grand Prix and we don't expect tomorrow to be any different.”
Sebastian Vettel will therefore start alongside Bottas on the front row of the grid after failing to better his Q3 banker lap while teammate Kimi Raikkonen will start from third.
“The feeling with the car was good most of the time” commented Kimi, “but somehow the laps were always a bit tricky, with everybody trying to get their free space. When the tyres switched on well, then everything was easier, but with the traffic in the out-lap it was not always the case. Some sets were feeling better than others purely because of having a bit better out-lap ."
"It was a bit hard to trust them and not get a front lock-up at the first corner. Overall the car itself was nice to drive when the tires worked, so it's a bit of a shame. It was not the most straightforward qualifying but in the end it was a decent result. I think we did a solid job today, we can consider it a good team result. For sure there was more to get, but the race is tomorrow and it's going to be long. For the start we'll try our best, the first corner is quite tight, so we'll try to make a good start and see what we can get”.
Red Bull's Max Verstappen will start from fourth on the grid alongside the Ferrari, however teammate Daniel Ricciardo will be a lot further down the grid than his fifth placed grid slot suggests as he is will be taking a ten place grid drop due to an engine change.
"An uneventful Qualifying for us today, and we finished where we expected to be," said Red Bull team boss Christian Horner. "Both drivers had a few issues with grip around this circuit and with temperatures being what they were, to qualify in fourth and fifth respectively for Max and Daniel is the maximum we could have hoped for. "
"With Max on the second row of the grid, he will take any opportunity he can to make early progress, while Daniel, whose penalties mean he will start down the grid, will be up for the challenge of moving through the field quickly and closing in on the leaders. With Lewis also starting at the back, tomorrow's grand prix could be very interesting indeed."
Sergio Perez will therefore move up into P5 and will be joined on the third row of the grid by Fernando Alonso, who qualified a pleasing seventh.
"As today's temperature went down compared to yesterday, we needed to adjust our settings in the final practice session in order to be best prepared for qualifying this afternoon,” said Honda's Yusuke Hasegawa. “Fernando has been looking competitive all day, and had a strong run to take P7 in qualifying. Once race penalties have been applied, he will start the race from P6. His performance was brilliant today."
The two Renault's will start from row four of the grid with Nico Hulkenberg out qualifying Carlos Sainz, who has been accused of blocking Felipe Massa's Williams, who qualified tenth.
Due to Daniel Ricciardo's penalty, Esteban Ocon will move into P10 and start alongside the Brazilian driver for his final home GP.
| 1) Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | 1:08.322 |
| 2) Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | + 0.038 |
| 3) Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | + 0.2016 |
| 4) Max Verstappen | Red Bull | + 0.603 |
| 5) Daniel Ricciardo * | Red Bull | + 1.008 |
| 6) Sergio Perez | Force India | + 1.276 |
| 7) Fernando Alonso | McLaren | + 1.295 |
| 8) Nico Hulkenberg | Renault | + 1.381 |
| 9) Carlos Sainz | Renault | + 1.483 |
| 10) Felipe Massa | Williams | + 1.519 |
| 11) Esteban Ocon | Force India | + 1.336 |
| 12) Romain Grosjean | Haas | + 1.385 |
| 13) Stoffel Vandoorne | McLaren | + 1.622 |
| 14) Kevin Magnussen | Haas | + 1.660 |
| 15) Brendon Hartley * | Toro Rosso | No time set |
| 16) Pascal Wehrlein | Sauber | 1:10.678 |
| 17) Pierre Gasly * | Toro Rosso | 1:10.686 |
| 18) Lance Stroll * | Williams | 1:10.776 |
| 19) Marcus Ericsson | Sauber | 1:10.875 |
| 20) Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | No time set |
