The Finn could only qualify sixth on the grid for Sunday’s season-ending finale in Abu Dhabi after struggling for pace in Q3 as he ended up behind McLaren’s Lando Nor🐬ris, the Red Bull of Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari. 

Bottas was over six-tenths slower than Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton, who was be✅aten to pole position by title rival Max Verstappen. 

But Bottas explained his🌃 pace struggles were down to prioritising his car set-up for the race and bec🍒ause he was forced to run an older-mileage engine. 

“I kind of hit a lap time limit,” Bott𒁃as said. “I think I actually did my best time in Q2 and I co𓄧uld never improve that. 

“It felt like the more I tried, the set-up of my car didn’t have anymore in it. The way I set-up my car, I went for quꦜite a soft set-up, mechanically, because I feel it’s quite good for the race. 

“I was hoping it would still be OK for qualifying, but the grip level was improving quite a lot.&n꧑bsp;

“The other factor was that we had to change for an older 𝐆Power Unitꩵ for today, which I knew that - at least compared to the Power Unit I had yesterday - it was going to cost me at least two tenths.” 

Asked why Mercedes opted to change his engine, Bottas replied: “We are more confiden🌺t with this Power Unit, for the reliability.”

Bottas explained that he lost performance 𓄧when the grip levels improved as qualifying progressed. 

“Basically, once the grip level started to improve throughout the quali💖fying, I just couldn’t🅺 improve the lap time,” he said. “There was like a hard limit in the car and the more it started to roll, that was the limit.

Bottas added that Mercedes also lost time to Red Bull in the slowe♔st corners. 

“I would say that 🍒Turn 5 and then Turns 6 and 7 have been a bit of an issue, but I would say the medium speed corners have been OK for us,” he explained. 

“Thos💜e two places have been a bit tricky, I caꩵn’t really say what is the reason for that but Red Bull always seems good in those kind of corners, anyway.”