Sebastian Vettel admitted he came under intense pressure during the closing laps of the Bahrain Grand Prix and was relieved to finally cross the line to claim his second win in two races.
Vettel, on old soft tyres, held a six second advantage over Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas with ten laps remaining, but the Finn's medium tyres meant he was able to push harder and closed that gap to within a second on the final lap.
Bottas failed to find a way past with Vettel winning by just 0.699 seconds and admitted he didn't think he'd hold onto the win given the pace disparity between the two of them.
"I think I came on the radio with ten laps to go. ‘I have everything under control', I don’t know whether they broadcast that but… It was a lie… There was nothing under control!
"When they told me the pace of Valtteri [Bottas] at that time I was…no way I could do that and I was doing the maths inside the car, ten laps to go, with that he’s going to catch me.
"I nursed them [the tyres] as much as I could and it worked, but just, I mean there wasn’t much. I guess in the straight, for Valtteri, he had a bit of a sniff but fortunately he ran out of laps so really happy."
Vettel said the circumstances in which he won made the victory all the more sweeter.
"Really pleased, obviously, you know, if you manage to get the win under these conditions it tastes even better so really happy."
Discussion about this post