Valtteri Bottas admits it was "a real shame" to see Sebastian Vettel prevent him from completing a Mercedes lockout of the front row in China by just 0.001s -- the equivalent of roughly 5.9 centimetres of the 5.451 km Shanghai circuit.
As at the opening Australian Grand Prix, Mercedes came to life in qualifying in China after Ferrari topped FP3. Bottas was unable to get close enough to challenge Lewis Hamilton's pole time late on but did finish within 0.187s of his teammate, only to see Vettel jump ahead by an agonisingly short margin at the end of Q3.
Bottas was disappointed to let a Ferrari get on the front row.
When asked where he could have improved the lap, he replied: "I think around one lap here, there's quite a few places. One-thousandth is like this maybe [gestures small margin] so it's not much. A real shame he managed to get between us. That's a shame but the race is tomorrow.
"We are starting as a team first and third, it's a good place to start. The weather can be anything really tomorrow. Lewis was strong today, Ferrari was strong and we were always expecting a close fight today on-track. I think it will be the same case tomorrow, but yeah, really thankful to the team again, great job in a short amount of time in practice today to get the car setup well. It was enjoyable to drive. Let's see what tomorrow brings."
Bottas, who admitted on arrival in China that he still feels like he is improving at his new team, says he already feels a big difference to his Mercedes debut weekend.
"Approaching this weekend compared to Melbourne the first round of the year it was different feeling. Having an F1 full race weekend with the team then the qualifying session then the race then the podium finish it was a nice start, so definitely feeling more and more comfortable. Still not satisfied, I think we mentioned that there is a big learning curve for me with everything. I feel better and better every single day with the team and every single lap with the car."