Lewis Hamilton left the entire F1 community awestruck with his astonishing qualifying outing at the British Grand Prix. The entire fandom cherished him for delivering the much-needed comeback amidst Red Bull’s dominance this season.

However, what one might not have noticed is that Valtteri Bottas played a crucial role in helping the Briton secure his third pole of the season at Silverstone.

How Bottas bolstered Hamilton’s chances of securing F1 pole

Hamilton posted an impressive lap time in his initial Q3 run, which saw the Briton secure provisional P1. However, what’s even more impressive was Hamilton’s final Q3 run.

The seven-time world champion was flying and almost pulled off what could have been one of the greatest laps around the Silverstone circuit. However, massive understeer going into the final corner meant that the Mercedes driver failed to improve on his lap time.

What a lap that would have been, had he perfected the final corner! And the credit undeniably goes to his teammate, Bottas.

According to The Race, Bottas offered Hamilton the much-needed tow, which consequently helped Hamilton set purple lap times around sectors 1 and 2.

Stats, too, reveal how important Bottas was in lending Hamilton the front-row start to the sprint race. The Briton could have secured the position by over 0.3s from Verstappen, if not for the mistake around the final corner, and two-thirds of the gap would have been because of Bottas.

Bottas or Russell: The huge dilemma for Mercedes

Bottas is proving to be the perfect fit for Hamilton this season, with Silvertone being a prime example. The Finn was selfless during qualifying and opted to work as a team player, even though he had every chance of botching Hamilton’s hopes of securing P1.

During the post-qualifying interview, he acknowledged assisting Hamilton during the session. “Yeah, it was for the best result for the team,” Bottas said.

With Bottas showing such class, Mercedes will be dragging themselves deeper into the second seat dilemma for next year. Of course, George Russell is an amazingly talented driver, who could well win Mercedes championship trophies in the future.

However, the Finn has selflessly played a second fiddle to Hamilton over the years. And Mercedes will be aware that Russell is not the kind of driver that favors such roles, and would rather want to take on Hamilton himself. So, who is the Brackley outfit ultimately going to choose as their second driver?

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