Convinced that Sebastian Vettel was on a two-stop strategy in Bahrain, Mercedes has admitted that it was too slow, especially in the case of Valtteri Bottas, in realising that in fact the German had switched to a one-stop strategy, in fact reacting to the Finn.

"We were probably a little bit too slow to recognise the threat that Sebastian was actually going to take the soft tyres all the way to the flag," admits technical director, James Allison, in the latest edition of Pure Pit Wall.

"Had we been slightly quicker to react to it we would probably have kept more pressure on him on the laps 35 to 45, and we might have had a better outcome as a result," he continues. "We expected him to stop again but he did very, very well in nursing those tyres all the way to the flag."

"Valtteri did manage to close down on Vettel," he adds, "with three laps to go we were hard up against his bumper but we were not quite good enough to get past him. Probably if the race had been a lap or two longer it would have been a different outcome but we left our charge a little bit too late and weren’t able to get the race win."

The Briton was also keen to deny that tyre wear was an issue for Bottas.

"The tyre wear of our car this year has been very good and in general better than the field," he said. "Whether specifically we could have made the soft tyres last the number of laps that Sebastian did we would only know by trying. My guess is we would because our car is looking after its tyres very well in the races this year."