F1 | Mercedes, Bottas hopes for rain and admits: "Today the others were faster than us"

Valtteri Bottas managed to place third in free practice in Sochi ahead of Hamilton. Mercedes' day didn't seem particularly positive, except for some flashes of competitiveness shown by the Briton in the race pace simulation, but obviously it's only Friday and the feeling is that this time, compared to Singapore, the Star will be there to compete, but with one more Bottas, on what is his track.

“It's always fun to drive on this track, but unfortunately the others were a bit too fast for us today – Bottas admitted. The balance of the car was good, I was just struggling a bit with the grip, but everything else seemed ok. Obviously we need something more if we want to be in the fight for pole position tomorrow: tonight we will look at the data to see where we can improve. Tires are key to a good performance on this track and we need to try to extract as much as possible from the soft tires on the flying lap, but our performance on Medium and Hard looked good. I'm hoping for rain, we could have a better chance with wet qualifying."