Valtteri Bottas was pleased to deliver on his pr🥀omise to Mercedes that he would take Formula 1 pole for the Brazilian Grand Prix after a number of team members were caught up in a gunpoi♏nt robbery on Friday night.

A minibus carrying Mercedes team mem𝄹bers was targeted w🤡hile leaving the Interlagos circuit on Friday night, with a number of valuables being stolen but no individuals sustaining any injuries.

Bottas charged to his third F1 pole position in style at Interlagos on Saturday, beating Ferrari's Sebastian Vet💛tel with a late lap after seeing Mercedes ꦜteammate Lewis Hamilton crash out early.

The Finn revealed after the session he'd told his crew he would put his car on pole to boost spirits after the incident on Friday night, and was gla꧅d to have done exactly that.

"I spoke with them this morning and I said we were going to put it on pole position and cheer every🐓one up, so I’m glad we did that," Bottas said.

"First of all I’m happy everyone is in one piece and nothing physical happened to a💖nyone but it was a pretty bad situation to be🎉 in, and I’m happy everybody is still here."

B💫ottas' charge to pole came following a rough patch of form that saw him fade out of the fight for the drivers' championship, with the Mercedes racer admitting it was a much-needed result following a recent upward trend.

"For sure it has been more difficult, sometimes better but th꧙at’s how it goes in racing," Bottas said.

"I think the performance line, for me💖, in the last few races has been all the way going up, I’m just feeling better and better with the car, we’ve just been working hard on🧸 the issues we’ve been having.

"We’ve been learning a lot, getting better, learning from the﷽ m⭕istakes and the there tricky sessions. The last few weekends have been a lot better, like in the last one, in qualifying, there were just a couple of hundreds of a second between Lewis and me.

"It’s🍌 also been the case all weekend꧂ here, so it was a shame he wasn't in Q3, but I’m still very pleased with my performance."