F1 | Allison admits Mercedes' argument: "We were slow to understand Vettel's strategy"

The extreme strategy implemented by Sebastian Vettel in Bahrain caught Mercedes off guard. He admitted it James allison, technical director of the Brackley team: "We were probably a little slow to understand the threat posed by Vettel, who reached the finish line on soft tyres”. The German driver, unlike the two Silver Arrows, mounted the Soft tires in the second stint, surprising everyone with the proverbial sweetness with which his SF71H managed the tires for 39 laps.

Convinced that Vettel would have pitted, Bottas didn't use his Mediums in the central part of the race, arriving at the Ferrari driver's exhaust, they are in the final laps, without having the opportunity to mount a decisive attack: “If we had been slightly quicker to react, we probably would have given him more pressure between laps 35 and 45, and consequently we could have achieved a better result” – explained Allison. “We expected him to stop again, but he did very, very well to safeguard those tires until the checkered flag. Valtteri managed to close the gap to Vettel with three laps to go. We were in trouble and we weren't good enough to overcome it. Probably if the race had lasted a lap or two more there would have been a different result, but we reacted a little too late and were unable to win the race.".

Federico Martino