Bottas beaten by "near to perfection" from Hamilton

Valtteri Bottas has described the British Grand Prix pole lap of Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton as "a perfect lap".

Bottas was magnanimous in defeat as Hamilton racked up a seventh Silverstone pole position with a record-breaking time of one minute 24.303secs.

The Finn, who qualified second after ending the session just over three-tenths behind the six-time F1 champion, said: "The car was feeling pretty good, the balance of the car was drifting a bit more towards oversteer.

"I don't know if the track temps were getting higher, but with both runs in Q3 I really struggled to attack the slow-speed corners as I had done before, and in turns 12, 13, I started to struggle with the rear end, it was a bit snappy.

"At the same time, Lewis had a perfect lap in the end, or at least near to perfection. It was a pretty impressive lap time, and I just couldn't quite match it with the balance I had otherwise it was okay."

Despite losing out to Hamilton, Bottas is planning to use the Briton's victory from second on the grid in 2019 as motivation.

He added: "I think my long-run performance this weekend has been really good.

"I believe there will be opportunities. Obviously, Lewis last year managed to win it from second place with a different strategy from me so everything is still wide open and no doubt the guys will try to mix it up from behind so we will see."

Before you go...

Hamilton: Silverstone qualifying "like juggling balls whilst you're on a moving plate"

Stunning Hamilton smashes Silverstone lap record to grab British GP pole

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