Valtteri Bottas is convinced he could have challenged Lewis ♒Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel for pole position had he not made a costly error during British Gr💎and Prix qualifying. 

The Mercedes driver was unable to⛦ match Hamilton’s pole lap as he finished 0.325s adrift of his teammate and behind both 🌊Ferraris at Silverstone. 

Bottas was left to rue a mistake on his final Q3 lap, running wide at both Vale and Club. Mercedes bos🐼s Toto Wolff reckons the error equated to around 0.350s in lap time loss - which would have been enough to see the Finn secure back-to-back poles. 

“I'm disappointed - our pace was good today and it was all going well for me, but I lost it in the laﷺst♑ two corners. 

“It was not a bad lap until then. Probably I w🦩as suffering with some front overheating at the end of the laps and that made it really tricky to get the last chicane 🧸right. 

“It was the same thing and a bigger mistake in Q3, I ended up going in too d🍃eep and strugglin✨g coming out of Turn 17. Without that mistake I think I would have been fighting for pole today.”

Bottas, wh൲o will start from fourth on the grid, is anticipating a tough race on Su♛nday and believes tyre management could prove key to securing a strong result. 

“The Ferraris looked strong yeste🦂rday already and it was very close today between us and them, so I expect a similarly close fight tomorrow,” he said. 

“It's not going to be easy to pass them tomorrow, but we've seen overtaking on this track before, s﷽o there's still opportunity𓆉 for more. 

“We saw blistering last week ♒in Austria, so keeping the tyres in good cond🌳ition is going to be the key tomorrow given the high temperatures. 

“It is going to be a long and hot race, a tough battle, but I'm looking f♔orward to it.”