Valtteri Bottas will start the Turkish Grand Prix in pole position. Bottas finished P2 in the qualifying behind his teammate Lewis Hamilton ut will start the race in front of the pace because of Lewis’s penalty.

But there were reports that the Finnish drive right had slowed down in the final sector to let Hamilton go fastest and take P1. Lewis will start the race in 11th place in the race so the pole for him was crucial to limit the damage.

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No, I wasn’t asked to slow down: Valtteri Bottas

The Mercedes driver denied the claims that the team asked him to slow down for Lewis. He explained he had felt the loss of time in the final sector.

” No, I wasn’t asked to slow down. I was definitely going for it,” said Bottas.

” I started to struggle a bit with the front end in the last sector. So just had some understeer in Turn 12 and 14. I could feel that I was losing a bit of time, probably used the tires a bit more earlier in the lap. So yeah, I was fully going for it for sure.” said the Finn.

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The Mercedes driver hopes to keep Max behind him in the race

Bottas will start ahead of Max Verstappen in the race. So he mentioned he is expecting the Dutch driver to go for it at the start of the race. But he stated he hopes he could keep the Red Bull driver behind.

“I’m sure Max will try everything he can. For sure, for me, there’s not that much to lose. Of course, I can try to defend hard if there’s a situation, but I’ll look forward to it. As long as I don’t do mistakes, I should be able to keep him behind, hopefully.” said Valtteri.

This might just be the last chance for Bottas to get his last win for the team and probably his career. The Finn would hope to get a good start to keep the title contender behind.

Can Bottas win in Turkey? Let us know.