Valtteri Bottas took a gamble by starting the sprint race on softs, unlike Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, who were on mediums. He failed to gain a place in the race, however.
"We tried to do something different. The target was to get him [Verstappen] in the first lap," Bottas said after the sprint qualifying session. "We didn't succeed. In the first corner, I was blocked so I couldn't get the momentum. Then the blistering but it was okay.
Gamble by Bottas and Mercedes didn't work out so well
"But we tried, and in the end, we managed to keep the same position we started from, although I suffered a bit from blisters," continued the Finnish driver.
With blisters appearing on both the soft and medium compounds, this did highlight a few things. "Tomorrow won't be easy, and when it gets a bit warmer we might see more problems. At least we are aware of that now, and tomorrow basically anything can happen," Bottas said.