Vettel feared Mercedes strategy was ‘checkmate’

Manama : Sebastian Vettel feared Mercedes had pulled a “checkmate” move to win the Bahrain Grand Prix when it committed to a one-stop strategy early in the race.

The German led the early stages in Bahrain but he was focused on a two-stopper when he moved to the soft compounds at the first round of tyre changes.

Behind him, Mercedes chose to put Valtteri Bottas on to the medium compound with the aim of going for a one-stop.

With Vettel not opening out enough of an advantage early in the stint, Vettel thought the race was lost, before his team elected to gamble on getting to the end without another stop.

In the end, he held off a late charge from Bottas to win by just 0.6 seconds.

“I came on the radio with 10 laps to go and said I had everything under control - and that was a lie,” said Vettel.

“There was nothing under control. When they told me the pace of Valtteri at that time, I said no way I can do that.

“I did the maths in the car and thought he was going to catch me.

“I tried to keep it as clean as possible. Both Mercedes at the end of the stint were very strong, especially the first one, and by going onto the prime [medium] they saw what we did [as Ferrari pitted first].

“Going onto the medium tyre I thought that was checkmate as we had to come in again.

“That was the original plan but we diverted again and tried to make them last and nurse them as much as I could. And it worked but only just.

“There wasn’t much - Valtteri had a bit of a sniff but fortunately he ran out of laps so I am really happy.”