Bottas ‘expects good fight’ with Hamilton

Valtteri Bottas is preparing himself for a "good fight" with team-mate Lewis Hamilton after the Mercedes duo locked out the front row in Baku.

The Finn was on provisional pole, but Hamilton pulled out another magical lap following the red flag caused by Daniel Ricciardo's crash in Q3 to nudge Bottas down to second.

But Bottas is pleased with the recovery after a challenging first day in Baku and is looking to take the fight to Hamilton in the race and keep Ferrari at bay.

“We were quite lost on Friday but we made some changes and turned the weekend around,” Bottas said.

“Going into the race we have a fantastic starting position and I’m expecting a good fight with Lewis.”

“It’s disappointing to lose pole as that was the target today,”

“It was looking good before the late red flag, but Lewis produced a great lap and mine just wasn’t good enough.

“That final run in Q3 was the first time we had tried to do a flying lap on the first lap, because of the temperatures, and I couldn’t get them to work as well as Lewis did – I just couldn’t find that grip out there.”