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Mortara: Pole was a 'big challenge'

Edoardo Mortara admitted that delivering his pole position effort for the Macau Grand Prix was a "big, big challenge", with his Signature car not feeling as good as he would have liked

The Italian, seeking to become the first man to win the Formula 3 blue riband event for the second time, edged out closest rival Valtteri Bottas by just more than two tenths of a second during the rescheduled qualifying session on Saturday morning.

Although the performance has put Mortara well on course for his historic achievement, he says things were far from easy.

"It feels really good," said Mortara. "Every time in the past I have missed pole position and now we have finally done it.

"But I feel pretty lucky compared to Valtteri because he was slightly faster than me, and it was a big, big challenge.

"I was pushing with all I've got and struggling quite a lot with the car, especially in the mountain section. That is normally where we're pretty fast compared to the others, but this time we are struggling a little bit.

"I think we just need to set up the car a little bit better. But I'm really happy for everybody, Volkswagen, and the Signature team. They gave me a really good car here and I'm able to show what I'm capable of at this track."

With the second qualifying session having been stopped twice because of red flags, and the numerous incidents on Friday that caused delays to qualifying, Mortara reckons the track conditions made things tricky for everybody.

"In F3 and in all other races there have been many crashes," he said. "I think the condition of the track is really slippery so it's very easy to make mistakes.

"To be on the edge and to drive at the limit in these conditions is really tricky. You just put a wheel outside of the good line and you're off. I knew there were so many red flags, which means you need to perform well in the first lap you've got that's free.

"We're lucky we have the #1 on the car, so we can start first, pull away from the others and not have to worry about their cars."

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