Williams' Lance Stroll felt it was 'optimistic' in their attempts to try and go to the end of the French Grand Prix on the yellow-marked Soft tyre after stopping in the early safety car period.
With the Grove-based outfit struggling for pace, Williams opted to try a different strategy to the rest of the field in an attempt to try and recover some positions after a poor qualifying session.
In the latter stages of the race, the teenager locked up heavily into the Turn 8 chicane, this caused a deep flat spot on the front left tyre but he continued on to try and make it to the chequered flag.
With just a few laps remaining, Stroll turned into very fast Signes corner and the front left tyre exploded under the heavy loading, forcing the Canadian to park the FW41 on the outside of the circuit, leaving a huge trail of debris which brought out the Virtual Safety Car.
"At the beginning, the pace wasn't too bad and I had a good start," said Stroll.
"With about 20 laps to go, I felt a massive vibration on the car and it was just big wear on the front-left tyre. I had a flat spot on that tyre and then with Vandoorne when he overtook me it was already so bad that I couldn't turn right, as I had no support on the left tyre, then with a few laps to go the vibration was so bad the tyre just blew and that was it.
"It was optimistic to go the whole race on one set of tyres, and I think we were the only ones trying to go the whole way. We tried to do something, but it just didn't work. It was certainly not the race we were hoping for."
Williams remains 10th in the Constructors' Championship with just four points, thanks to Stroll's eighth-place finish in Baku.