Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas of Finland steers his auto during the second free practice at the Formula One Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku, Azerbaijan, Friday, June 23, 2017.
The Briton, this year chasing a fourth world title, which would elevate him ahead of his boyhood hero Ayrton Senna and into the pantheon of the sport's all-time greats, instead spoke of hunting down Juan Manuel Fangio's haul of five championships.
Qualifying in second place should be seen as a good day's work, but after leading Hamilton in the three free practice sessions, Bottas didn't see things that way.
Ahead of Q1, the air temperature is 26 degrees C, while the track temperature is 50 degrees. But just when it seemed that he was going to carry on in that vein in Q3, he made a mistake in the final corner on his first run, and suddenly it was Bottas on the pole, with 1m 41.274s to 1m 41.428s.
Red Bull dominated Friday practice, with Max Verstappen topping both timesheets and Ricciardo finishing both in the top three, but they did not feature in the battle for pole with Verstappen fifth and Ricciardo 10th. Despite that, the Brit had enough time to get one final lap done and it was probably the best lap ever.
Mercedes driver Hamilton, who won in Canada last time out and started on pole, was seemingly on course to pick up a comfortable victory and make further inroads into Vettel's championship advantage after maintaining his lead following a red flag.
A crash in Q3 and an engine issue throughout the 51-lap race meant the Brit was not able to recover. After the red flag, there was a lot of pressure on that final lap. I don't have a problem with him it was just one incident which was wrong and if I got penalised then he should have got penalised.
"The Baku city circuit made a very good impression on me".
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"I am so pumped - that's how qualifying should be". That's how qualifying should be. "It is going to be a long, hard race but we are in the best position to start." concluded Hamilton, evidently euphoric after such an outcome.
That set the stage for an unpredictable qualifying session.
He improved from sixth to fourth but could not match team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, who will start third on Sunday, and finished more than a second adrift of Hamilton.
Vettel was also hit with a 10-second penalty for deliberately shunting Hamilton when coming into the pits following that flag on lap 22 after several collisions saw the track littered with debris, with the Ferrari man fuming when he felt Hamilton had deliberately slowed down under the safety auto, causing contact between the two.
Brazilian Felipe Massa had a scare as he also almost crashed going through Turn 8, while Russian driver Daniil Kvyat, Canadian teen Lance Stroll and Frenchman Romain Grosjean all went off track.
Tune in from 11pm AEST for The Roar's live blog coverage of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, as we await the latest twist in the 2017 title tale.
Australia: TV: Ten HD.
India: TV: Star Sports Select 2.
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