2019 SPANISH GP: STATEMENTS FROM TOP 3 DRIVERS

Valtteri Bottas storms to pole in Barcelona, claiming his ninth Formula One Pole position, his third of the 2019 season and first in Barcelona. Lewis Hamilton will start tomorrow’s Spanish Grand Prix from P2 on the grid. Sebastian will start behind Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton, with Max Verstappen alongside him. All top 10 drivers will start the race on the Soft tyre.

Valtteri Bottas: "This feels really good. In every run in Qualifying I found room for improvement, little bits here and there, and I managed to get everything together in Q3 and had a very strong first lap. I think the package we have brought to Barcelona is working very well and the car was very strong, especially in Sector 3."

"All the credit for that goes to the team, thank you to everyone back in Brackley and Brixworth. Our long run pace looked good on Friday, but a lot can happen on a Sunday. The start and Turn 1 will be particularly important. Tomorrow, Lewis and I both want to win, so I’m looking forward to a hard and fair fight."

Lewis Hamilton: "I wasn’t quick enough today and wasn’t able to extract the full potential from the car. I have been struggling with the car all weekend, so I will have to look into the details, figure out how I can improve my pace and keep working. Valtteri had a good qualifying session and did a great job, so he deserved pole."

"Our long-run pace looked good, so hopefully we should be strong tomorrow as well. My starts have been decent so far this year, so hopefully that will continue on Sunday as it’s not that easy to overtake on this track."

Sebastian Vettel: "We are happy but we’re not happy. By that, I mean that the car is well balanced and I think the updates we have brought have helped with the driveability of the car. However, it’s obvious that we are still not where we want to be, because we are very quick down the straights, but we are losing too much time through the slower corners."

"The result of all that is that we are not in front and so we have to continue to work hard. Nevertheless, I think that having a well balanced car means we can have a good race, so I’m ready to give it my all tomorrow."