Bottas bests Hamilton for pole at Portimao as Mercedes lock out front row; Verstappen a disappointed P3, Perez P4 for Red Bull

Mercedes number two driver Valtteri Bottas looked more like a number one during tricky Saturday qualifying for the Portuguese Grand Prix, taking pole and from his championship-leading teammate Lewis Hamilton. With gusty winds whipping the cars as they made their way around the rather hilly and twisty Portimao circuit and the Pirellli tires proving a bit of a puzzlement to the teams in not particularly warm conditions, the veteran Finn was the one who was able to best hook up a fast lap to take the premier starting spot for Sunday’s race and deny Hamilton his one-hundredth pole. The normally superlative Hamilton, who similarly wrested last yer’s pole position from Bottas in this tricky little circuit’s debut on the Formula 1 calendar, found himself adrift of his Silver Arrows teammate by a mere seven-one-thousandths of a second when time ran out. It was a  nice rebound by Bottas after he was crashed out by the rash George Russell’s Williams at the last race in Emilia Romagna two weeks ago.

Intriguingly, while the Mercedes duo both chose the Medium Pirelli tires to run on when it counted most in Q3 the Red Bulls both decided the Soft tires were better suited to their chassis. It didn’t quite pay off, however, as Max Verstappen struggled with a tail wind into turns 13 and 14 that led to his fastest lap early in the final qualifying session being deleted for exceeding track limits. While the flying Dutchman was able to set a quick time later in Q3 he couldn’t quite match the pace of the Silver Arrows even on the Softs and had to settle for P3. Likewise, his Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez was also unable to really challenge the dominant Mercedes on this day and slotted in on the second row alongside Verstappen in P4. Tire strategy between these two top teams should be very interesting come race day, assuming that Mercedes continue to favor the Mediums while Red Bull prefer the Softs. The seemingly ever present winds here in the Algarve will also have their say, I’d reckon.

Ferrari continued what appears to be a nice little 2021 renaissance, with Carlos Sainz out-qualifying his more heralded stablemate Charles Leclerc P5 to P8. The Prancing Horses are already miles ahead of their woeful pace last season and could conceivably land a podium finish or two before the year is out with a little luck. Esteban Ocon did a fine job for Alpine with a stout P6 effort, really outclassing legendary teammate Fernando Alonso on this day, who was unceremoniously bounced in Q2 with only the thirteenth fastest lap. Similarly, McLaren’s Lando Norris continued to excel, nabbing the seventh fastest time, while his veteran teammate Daniel Ricciardo was flummoxed when he found himself eliminated in Q1 with a lap only good enough for P16, not to mention over a second behind the rapidly developing Norris in that session. Rounding out the top ten starters for tomorrow’s race, Pierre Gasly continued his impressive run of making it into Q3 and was able to fight his twitchy car for a time good enough for P9, while Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel had his best quali effort in some time and certainly his best for his new team, taking P10 on the grid, some seven grid spots ahead of teammate Lance Stroll. That should do some good for Vettel’s rather fragile confidence. Now the German four-time champ just needs to avoid what have become his far too frequent unforced errors and get a solid points finish in tomorrow’s race.

Top 10 qualifiers for the Portuguese GP:

Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.

Tomorrow’s race airs live at 10AM Eastern on ESPN here in the States. Hope to see you then to find out how things shake out between not only the Mercs and Red Bulls but also between the respective teammates, as well, which could be a real ding dong battle between the four best cars on the grid!