Valtteri Bottas was left ruing a couple of small mistakes in the final sector of hi♔s last Q3 lap in qualifying for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Saturday afte𝓀r narrowly losing out on pole position to Mercedes Formula 1 teammate Lewis Hamilton.

Bottas bounced back from a difficult Q2 to grab second place on the grid at the Yas Marꦍina Circuit, finishing 0.162 seconds shy of Hamilton in the final stage of qualifying.

As his teammate celebrated h🐈is 11th pole of the yꦬear, Bottas was lef🐭t with a pang of disappointment after seeing his hopes disappear in the final sector of the lap, prior to which he was within one-tenth of Hamilton's time, only to lose another tenth to his teammate.

"For sure I was aiming for the pole. I had a good result here last yeඣar but I couldn’t repeat that," Botta⛎s said after the session.

"Personally, P2 is not what I was aiming for, but for us, even after we could secure the constructors’ title, we can still perfo♋rm at a very high level. So, as a team, being P1 and ꦚP2 for the final race is good.

"In my first lap I felt there was plenty I could improve, and the gap would get smaller between us than in the first runs. In the second run I think there was definitely some track improvement, and both of u🅘s managed to fi🀅nd some time. But he just managed to get a little bit of a more complete lap, in the end."

Bottas explained how he struggled to dial�🐽� his Mercedes W09 car in through the earlier stages of qualifying, particularly when running on the Ultrasoft tyre in Q2.

"I think that what hurt me a ꧟bit was there was a couple of runs in qualifyin♑g where I couldn’t get a good lap in," Bottas said.

"I think with the Ultrasoft tyres, at the start of Q2 and in🅰 some other runs, I really struggled with some things in the car.

"But I managed to have a cou▨ple of decent laps in Q3 and we could secure a well-ear🍷ned one-two for the team."