Bottas has his hopes up despite P3: "Starting third, anything is possible"

Valtteri Bottas will start the Bahrain Grand Prix from third place, behind teammate Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. The Mercedes driver is confident his team can challenge Verstappen with having two drivers at the front, compared to Red Bull Racing's single driver. 

Tight battle

Red Bull looked to have the upper hand during pre-season and the practice sessions during the Bahrain Grand Prix. And after the first meaningful session of the season, Verstappen led the way but Bottas wasn't too downbeat in the post-session interview. 

"The practice this morning wasn't easy, had lots of issue with the balance of the car and I was hoping the evening session would be better. In Q1 we went out on a second run with the soft tyres so we wasted a tyre set. In Q3, we only had one set of new tyres so it was tricky to compete against Max and Lewis with just one set," Bottas said. 

"Not too bad, but not where we want to be. But starting third, anything is possible."